NATHANAEL GREENE. 



EXAMINATION OF SOME STATEMENTS CONCERNING 

MAJOR-GENERAL GREENE, IN THE NINTH 

VOLUME OF BANCROFT'S HISTORY 

OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BT 



GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, 

i\ 

AUTHOR OF "historical VIEW OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION," ETC., ETC. 




BOSTON: 
TICK NOR AND FIELDS. 

1866. 







" From you who knew and loved him, I fear not the imputation of flattery 
or enthusiasm when I indulge an expectation that the name of GREENE will 
at once awaken in your mind the images of whatever is noble and estimable in 

human nature As a man, the virtues of Greene are admitted ; as a 

patriot, he hokls a place in the foremost rank ; as a statesman, he is praised ; 
as a soldier, he is admired. But in the two last characters, especially in the last 
but one, his reputation falls far below his desert. It required a longer life, and 
still greater opportunities, to have enabled him to exhibit, in full day, the vast, 
I had almost said the enormous, powers of his mind The sudden ter- 
mination of his life cut him off from those scenes which the progress of a new, 
immense, and unsettled empire could not fail to open to the complete exertion 
of that universal and pervading genius M'hich qualified him not less for the 
senate than for the field. 

" In forming our estimate, nevertheless, of his character, we are not left to 

supposition and conjecture We have a succession of deeds, as glorious 

as they arc unequivocal, to attest his greatness and perpetuate the honors of his 
name He was not long there [the camp at Cambridge] before the dis- 
cerning eye of the American Fabius marked him out as the object of his confi- 
dence His abilities entitled him to a pre-eminent share in the councils 

of his chief. He gained it, and he preserved it amidst all the checkered varie- 
ties of military vicissitude, and in defiance of all the intrigues of jealous and 
aspiring rivals." — Alexander Hamilton's Eulogium on Major- General 
Greene. Delivered before the Society of the Cincinnati, July 4, 1789. 

When we call to mind who the members of the Cincinnati wei-e, and remem- 
ber that, but for illness, Washington himself would have been present as their 
head, when this discourse was delivered, we shall see that it passes from the 
equivocal class of eulogies to the higher class of historical authorities. 



PREFACE. 



Mr. Bancroft's last volume, covering the history 
of the War of Independence from the summer of 
1776 to the spring of 1778, contains statements 
concerning General Greene which I believe to be at 
variance, both in the spirit and in the letter, with 
all the contemporary historians, and with all those 
documents from whence authentic history is dra^wn. 
I cannot allow them to pass without contradiction. 

Questions like these can only be decided by an 
appeal to the original documents, and to the original 
documents I appeal. First among them are the 
letters of Washington ; in using which I have chiefly 
relied upon the judicious selection of Mr, Sparks. 
Next to these in importance, and equal to them in 
authenticity, are the letters of General Greene ; some 
of which have been published by Force in his great 
national monument, the American Archives, and 
some by Sparks in the "Correspondence of the 
Revolution." By far the greater part, however, 
unfortunately for the true understanding of this 



IV PREFACE. 

period of our history, are still in mannserijDt. After 
these come the contemporary historians of the war, 
of whom Gordon is the fullest, and in general the 
most trustworthy. No man ever had better oppor- 
tunities of ascertaining the truth than he, nor, as I 
believe, a stronger desire to tell it. He formed the 
plan of his history at the first breaking out of the 
war, collected his materials while it was going on, 
had access to the papers of the leading characters, 
and took great pains to establish the truth both by 
oral and written inquiry. I have many letters of 
his to General Greene containing questions concern- 
ing particular events, and some of General Greene's 
answers. A single extract will show the character 
of these inquiries. 

"Jamaica Plains, April 5, 1784. 

" Dear General : — 

". . . . I have a grateful sense of your kindness 
when I was at Newport, and that I believe in your 
professions shall convince you by these presents. 

" Pray you to inform me, — 

" Who accompanied you when reconnoitring for a 
position upon the landing of General Howe ? 

" How far the cross-roads were from him ? 

" What was the name of the place the army occu- 
pied at the back of Wilmington ? 

"What was the particular spot you would have 



PREFACE. V 

chosen on the other side of the Schuylkill, instead of 
crossing it, in hopes that General Howe would have 
fought you ere he attempted passing it and going on 
for Philadelphia ? " 

Similar letters of this indefatigable inquirer are 
found among the Washington papers, and it is well 
known that he was a correspondent of Gates also. 
That he had his prejudices cannot be denied ; nor 
that they sometimes led him into error : but that he 
industriously sought the truth even Mr. Bancroft 
has conceded ; although he has so boldly differed 
from him in all that relates to General Greene. 
Upon what authority he relies, in thus denying the 
authority of Gordon, he nowhere tells us. 

In publishing Greene's letters I have given them 
in full, that the reader might have no ground to 
suspect me of selecting only what told for my cause. 
And I have done this all the more freely, inasmuch 
as it affords Greene an opportunity of painting him- 
self Every stroke of his pen, if I do not greatly 
err, is a triumphant, although an unconscious, vin- 
dication from the aspersions which Mr. Bancroft has 
cast upon his name. 

Frederick the Great was once told that a distin- 
guished general had never made a mistake. "Then," 
said he, " he must have fought very few campaigns." 
That Greene made some mistakes I have no doubt; 
nor that Washington made some. No one will 



VI PREFACE. 

accuse me of undervaluing Greene. Should any one 
suspect me of wishing to defend him at Washington's 
expense, I would refer to the opinion of Washington, 
both as a statesman and as a general, which I have 
expressed in my "Historical View of the American 
Revolution." No writer, as far as I have seen, has 
placed him higher than I have done in the eighth 
lecture of that volume. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE. 
East Greenwich, R. I., Nov. 21, 1866. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 



" It is not the least debt which we owe to history," 
says Sir Walter Raleigh, " that it hath made us ac- 
quainted with our dead ancestors, and out of the 
depth and darkness of the earth delivered us their 
memory and fame." Deeply impressed with this 
truth, I purpose to examine the statements which 
Mr. Bancroft makes in his ninth volume concerning 
my ancestor, General Greene ; still bearing in mind 
that " the essence of history is to be true, , . . . the 
essence of political history is to be a register or 
record, including nothing false, and omitting nothing 
important with reference to its end." * 

I. Greene despondent. 

Gathering the substance of his chapters into an 
analytical table of contents, Mr. Bancroft writes, in the 
analysis of his first chapter, '•'■Greene despondent!' On 
turning to the page (40) I find : " Greene had once 
before warned John Adams of the hopelessness of 
the contest ; and again on the fourteenth he wrote, 
' I still think you are playing a desperate game.' " 

* Lewis on the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, Ch. VII- 
U 1-25. 



8 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

The nature and extent of Greene's despondency 
may be gathered from the three letters to which 
Mr. Bancroft, not citing, but probably drawing from, 
Mr. Charles Francis Adams's life of his grandfather, 
John Adams, alludes. But before we pass to these 
letters, I must call the reader's attention to the 
meaning of the word desperate, which Mr. Bancroft, 
deviating from the sounder modes of historical quo- 
tation, has transformed into hopelessness. 

It can hardly be necessary to remind the reader 
of the rank held by Middleton among the writers of 
the last century as a master of pure and idiomatic 
Englisli.=== What he means by desperate may be seen 
from the following passage — I could add a dozen 
— in his " Life of Cicero " : " The obscurity of his 
extraction, which depressed him with the nobility, 
made him the greater favorite with the people, who, 
on all occasions of danger, thought him the only man 
fit to be trusted with their lives and fortunes, or to 
have the command of a difficult and desperate war ; 
and, in truth, he twice delivered them from the most 
desperate with which they had ever been threatened 
by a foreign enemy." f It is evident that in both 
these passages desperate means, not hopeless, but ex- 
ceed'mghj difficult. In this sense Washington also uses 
it, in a letter quoted by Mr. Bancroft, p. 220, — " Des- 
perate diseases require desperate remedies." And 
that this is the sense in which Greene uses it in the 
letters so inadequate^ represented by this insulated 

* " Middleton," says Dugald Stewart in his Life of Robertson, "was recom- 
mended to Scotchmen as the safest model for their imitation." — Stewart's 
Works Vol. VII. p. 169. 

t Vol. I. p. 27. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 9 

sentence, is evident from the firm and resolute tone 
which runs through them from beginning to end. 
One more remark before I pass to them. They 
were addressed to Adams, not as a personal friend, 
but as a member of Congress, upon whose sanguine 
mind Greene sought to impress the difficulties of the 
contest, and the danger of trusting to intentions 
and resolves. 

"Brookline, Long Island, May 24, 1776. 

" Sir : — The peculiar situation of American af- 
fairs renders it necessary to adopt every measure that 
will engage people in the service, — the danger and 
hardships that those are subject to who engage in 
the service more than those who do not, is obvious 
to everybody which has the least acquaintance with 
service. 'T is that which makes it so difficult to re- 
cruit. The large force which is coming against 
America will make it necessary to augment our 
forces. If I am to form a judgment of the success 
of recruiting from what is past, the time is too short 
to raise the troops, and be in readiness to meet the 
enemy ; and as every argument has been made use 
of upon the present plan of recruiting to engage 
people in the service, there must be some new mo- 
tives added to quicken the motions of the recruiting 
parties. 

"From the approaching danger, recruiting will 
grow more and more difficult. If the Congress was 
to fix a certain support upon every officer and sol- 
dier that got maimed in the service, or upon the 
families of those that were killed, it would have as 



10 NATHAN AEL GREENE. 

happy an influence towards engaging people in the 
service, and inspire those engaged with as much 
courage, as any measure that can be fixt upon. I 
think it is nothing more than common justice, 
neither, — it puts those in and out of the army up- 
on a more equal footing than at present. I have 
not time to add anything more, — Major Frazier 
now waiting for this. The desperate game you 
have got to play, and the uncertainty of war, may 
render every measure that will increase the force 
and strength of the American army worthy consid- 
eration. AVhen I have more leisure time, I will 
presume so much upon your good nature as to write 
upon some other matters. Believe me to be, with 
great respect, yours. 

"Nathanael Greene." 

It is difficult to discover any traces of despond- 
ency in this letter ; but it certainly displays a very 
just sense of the dangers of the situation, and a 
very wise and statesmanlike suggestion of the rem- 
edy. Let us see what he writes from 

" Camp on Long Island, June 2, 1776. 

" Sir : — I have just received your favor of the 
26 th of May, in answer to mine of the 24th. You 
must not expect me to be a very exact correspond- 
ent ; my circumstances will not always admit of it. 
When I have opportunity I will write you with free- 
dom. If any information I can give you should be 
of service, I shall be amply paid. I know your time 
is too precious to be spent in answering letters ; but 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 11 

a line from you at all times will be very acceptable, 
with such intelligence as you are at liberty to 
give. 

" By your letter I have the happiness to find you 
agree with me in sentiment, for the establishing a 
support for those that get disabled in the army or 
militia ; but I am sorry to find, at the same time, 
that you are very doubtful of its taking effect. I 
could wish the Congress to think seriously of the 
matter, both with respect to the justice and utility 
of the measure. Is it not inhuman to suffer those 
that have fought nobly in the cause to be reduced 
to the necessity of getting a support by common 
charity? Does not this militate with the free and 
independent principles which we are endeavoring to 
support ? Is it not equitable that the State who re- 
ceives the benefit should be at the expense ? The 
community, collectively considered, pays nothing 
more for the establishing a support than if they do 
not ; for those that get disabled must be supported 
by the continent in general, or the province in par- 
ticular. If the continent establishes no support, by 
the fate of war some colonies might be grievously 
burthened. I cannot see upon what principle any 
cohny can encourage the inhabitants to engage in 
the army when the ^tate that employs them refuses 
a support to the unfortunate. I think it would be 
right and just for every government to furnish their 
equal proportion of the troops, or contribute to the 
support of those that are sent by other colonies. 

" Can there be anything more humiliating than this 
consideration to those that are in the army or to those 



12 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

that have a mind to come in it ? — If I meet with a 
misfortune I shall be reduced to the necessity of 
begging my bread. Is not this degrading and dis- 
tressing a part of the human species that deserves 
a better fate ? On the other hand, if there was a 
support established, what confidence would it give 
to those engaged, what encouragement to those that 
are not. Good policy points out the measure ; hu- 
manity calls for it; and justice claims it at your 
hands. 

" I apprehend the dispute to be but in its infancy : 
nothing should be neglected to encourage people to 
engage, or to render those easy, contented, and 
happy that are engaged. Good covering is an ob- 
ject of the first consideration. I know of nothing 
that is more discouraging than the want of it : it 
renders the troops very uncomfortable and gener- 
ally unhealthy. A few troops well accommodated, 
healthy and spirited, will do more service to the 
state that employs them, than a much larger num- 
ber that are, sickly, dispirited, and discontented. 
This is the unhappy state of the army at this time, 
arising from the badness of the tents. His Excel- 
lency has ordered everything to be done to remedy 
the evil that is in his power, but before the remedy 
can take place the health of the troops will receive 
a severe wound. 

" From the nature of the dispute, and the manner 
of furnishing the State with troops, too much care 
cannot be taken of those that engage, otherwise 
some particular governments more public-spirited 
than others, may be depopulated. 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 13 

" Good officers is the very soul of an army ; the 
activity and zeal of the troops entirely depends upon 
the degree of animation given them by their officers. 
1 think it was Sir William Pitt's maxim to pay well 
and hang well to have a good army. The field offi- 
cers in general, and the colonels of regiments in par- 
ticular, think themselves grievously burthened upon 
the present establishment : few, if any, of that rank 
that are worth retaining in service will continue if 
any dependence is to be made upon the discontent 
that appears. They say — and I* believe with too 
much truth — that their pay and provision will not 
defray their expenses. Another great grievance 
they complain on is, they are obliged to act as fac- 
tors for the regiment : subject to many losses with- 
out any extraordinary allowance for their trouble : 
drawing from the continental stores by wholesale, 
and delivering out to the troops by retail. This 
business has been attended with much perplexity, 
and accompanied with very great losses where the 
colonels have not been good accountants. This is 
no part of the duty of the colonel of a regiment, 
and by the mode in which the business has been 
conducted, too much of their time has been engaged 
in that employment for the good of the service. 
There should be an agent with each regiment to 
provide the troops with clothing on the easiest 
terms, allowed to draw money for that purpose oc- 
casionally, to be stopped out of the pay abstract. 
Those agents could provide seasonably, fetch their 
goods from a distance, and prevent those local im- 
positions that arises from every reverse of the army. 



14 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

" The dispute begins to be reduced to a national 
principle, and the longer it continues the more that 
idea will prevail. People engaged in the service in 
the early part of the dispute without any consider- 
ation of pay reward : few, if any, thought of its con- 
tinuance ; but its duration will reduce all that have 
not independent fortunes to attend to their family 
concerns. And if the present pay of those in the 
service is insufficient for the support of them and 
their families, they must consequently quit it. The 
novelty of the army may engage others, but you 
cannot imagine the injury the army sustains by the 
loss of every good officer. A young officer without 
any experience in the military art or knowledge of 
mankind, unless he has a very uncommon genius 
must be totally unfit to command a regiment. 

" I observe in the Resolves of Congress they have 
reserved to themselves the right of rewarding by 
promotion according to merit ; the reserve may be 
right, but the exercise will be dangerous, often in- 
jiu'ious, and sometimes very unjust. (Of) two per- 
sons of very unequal merit, the inferior may get 
promoted over the superior, if a single instance of 
bravery is a sufficient reason for such a promotion. 
There is no doubt but that it's right and just to re- 
ward singular merit, but the public applause accom- 
panying every brave action is a noble reward. 

" Where one officer is promoted over the head of 
another, if he has spirit enough to be fit for service 
it lays him under the necessity of quitting it. It is 
a public intimation that he is unfit for promotion, 
and consequently undeserving his present appoint- 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 15 

ment. For my own part I would never give any 
legislative body an opportunity to humiliate me but 
once. I should think the general's recommenda- 
tion is necessary to warrant a promotion out of the 
regular channel. For rank is of such importance 
in the army, and so delicate are the sentiments re- 
specting it, that very strong reasons ought to be 
given for going out of the proper channel, or else it 
will not be satisfactory to the army in general, or to 
the party in particular. 

" The emission of such large sums of money in- 
creases the price in proportion to the sums emitted ; 
the money has but a nominal value. The evil does 
not arise from a depreciation altogether but from 
there being larger sums emitted than is necessary 
for a circulating medium. If the evil increases it will 
starve the army, for the pay of the troops at the 
prices things are sold at will scarcely keep the troops 
decently clothed. Notwithstanding what I write I 
will engage to keep the troops under my command 
as easy and contented as any in the army. 

" I observe you don't think the game you are 
playing as desperate as I imagine. You doubtless 
are much better acquainted with the resources that 
are to be had in case of any misfortune than I am ; 
but I flatter myself I know the history, strength and 
state of the army almost as well as any in it, both 
with respect to the goodness of the troops and the 
abilities of the officers. Don't be too confident : the 
fate of war is very uncertain : little incidents has 
given rise to great events. Suppose this army should 
be defeated, two or three of the leading Generals 



16 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

killed, our stores and magazines all lost, I would not 
be answerable for the consequences that such a 
stroke might produce in American politics. You 
think the present army assisted by the militia is suf- 
ficient to oppose the force of Great Britain, formid- 
able as it appears on paper. I can assure you it 's 
necessary to make great allowances in the calculation 
of our strength from the establishment or else you '11 
be greatly deceived. I am confident the force of 
America, if proj)erly exerted, will prove superior to 
all her enemies, but I would risk nothing to chance ; 
it is easy to disband when it is impossible to raise 
troops, 

"1 approve your plan of encouraging our own 
troops rather than reducing theirs : let us fight and 
beat them fairly and free our country from oppres- 
sion without departing from the principles of honor, 
truth, or justice. The conditions you propose are 
very honorable, but I fear whether they are alto- 
gether equal to the emergency of the times, for 
mankind being much more influenced by present 
profit than remote advantages, people will consider 
what benefit they are immediately to receive, and 
take their resolutions accordingly. 

" If the force of Great Britain should prove near 
equal to what it has been represented, a large aug- 
mentation will be necessary; if the present ofters 
should not be sufficient to induce people to engage 
in the army you will be obliged to augment the 
army ; and perhaps at a time when that order of 
people will have it in their power to make their own 
conditions or distress the state. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 17 

"As I have wrote a great deal and the Doctor 
waiting, I shall add no more, only my hearty wishes 
for your health and happiness. Believe me to be 
with great esteem your most obedient and humble 
servant, 

"N. Greene." 

Eleven days after this letter was written, John 
Adams was appointed President of the Board of 
War. On the 14th of July, Greene again writes 
him : — 

"Camp on Long Island, July 14, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — I received your letter of the 22d 
of June : if it was necessary for you to apologize for 
not writing sooner, it is necessary also for me. But 
as the express condition of my corresponding with 
you was to write when I had time and leave you to 
answer at your leisure, I think an apology is unne- 
cessary on either side. But I can assure you, as you 
did me, that it is not for want of respect that your 
letter has been unanswered so long. 

" I am glad to find you agree with me in the jus- 
tice and propriety of establishing some provision for 
the unfortunate. I have not had time to fix upon 
any plan for that purpose, but I will write you more 
fully in my next. I have never mentioned the mat- 
ter to but one or two particular friends, for fear the 
establishment should not take place. The troops' 
expectations being once raised, a disappointment 
must necessarily sour them. On the other hand, if 
Congress established a support for the unfortunate 
unsolicited, it must inspire the army with love and 



18 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

gratitude towards the Congress for so generous an 
act. 

" You query whether there is not a want of econ- 
omy in the army among the ofiicers. I can assure 
you there is not among those of my acquaintance. 
The expenses of the officers runs very high, unless 
they dress, and hve below the gentleman. Few that 
have ever lived in character will be willing to de- 
scend to that. As long as they continue in service 
they will support their rank ; and if their pay is not 
sufficient they will draw on their private fortunes at 
home. The pay of the soldiers will scarcely keep 
them decently clothed. The troops are kept so 
much on fatigue that they wear out their clothing 
as fast as the officers can get it. The wages given to 
common soldiers is very high ; but everything is so 
dear that the purchase of a few articles takes their 
whole pay. This is a general complaint through 
the whole army. 

" I am not against rewarding merit, or encourag- 
ing activity ; neither would I have promotions con- 
fined to a regular line of succession ; but every man 
that has spirit enough to be fit for an officer will 
have too much to continue in service after another 
of inferior rank is put over his head. The power of 
rewarding merit should be lodged with the Con- 
gress ; but I should think the general's recommenda- 
tion is the best testimonial of a person's deserving a 
reward that the Congress can have. 

" Many of the New England colonels have let in a 
jealousy that the Southern officers of that rank in 
the Continental establishment are treated with more 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 19 

respect and attention by the Congress than they 
are. They say several of the Southern colonels 
have been promoted to the rank of brigadier-gen- 
eral, but not one New England colonel. Some of 
them appear not a little disgusted. I wish the offi- 
cers in general were as studious to deserve promo- 
tion as they are anxious to obtain it. 

" You cannot more sincerely lament the want of 
knowledge to execute the business that falls in your 
department than I do that which falls in mine ; and 
was I not kept in countenance by some of my supe- 
rior officers" (Greene was yet only a brigadier), "I 
should be sincerely disposed to quit the command I 
hold in the army. But I will endeavor to supply 
the want of knowledge as much as possible by 
watchfulness and industry. In these respects I flat- 
ter myself I have never been faulty. I have never 
been one moment out of the service since I engaged 
in it. My interest has and will suffer greatly by 
my absence ; but I shall think that a small sacrifice 
if I can save my country from slavery. 

" You have heard, long before this will reach you, 
of the arrival of General and Admiral Howe. The 
General's troops are encamped on Staten Island. 
The Admiral arrived on Friday last. A few hours 
before his arrival, two ships went up the North 
River amidst a most terrible fire from the different 
batteries. The Admiral sent up a flag to-day ; but 
as the letter was not properly addressed it was not 
received. The Admiral laments his not arriving a 
few days sooner. I suppose he alludes to the Decla- 
ration of Independence. It is said he has great pow- 
ers to treat, as well as a strong army to execute. 



20 NATHAlNfAEL GREENE. 

" I wrote you some time past I thought you were 
playing a desperate game. I still think so. Here 
is Howe's army arrived, and the reinforcements 
hourly expected. 

" The whole force we have to oppose them don't 
amount to much above nine thousand, if any. I 
could wish the troops had been drawn together a 
little earlier, that we might have had some oppor- 
tunity of disciplining them. However, what falls to 
my lot I shall endeavor to execute to the best of 
my ability. 

" I am, with the greatest respect, your most obe- 

dent humble servan 

"Nath. Greene." 

On September 28th, after the battle of Long 
Island, and the retreat from New York, he writes a 
brother : — "I apprehend the several retreats that 
have lately taken place begin to make you think all 
is lost. Don't be frightened ; our cause is not yet in 
a desperate state. The policy of Congress has been 
the most absurd and ridiculous imaginable, pouring 
in militia-men, who come and go every month. A 
military force established upon such principles de- 
feats itself People coming from home, with all the 
tender feelings of domestic life, are not sufficiently 
fortified with natural courage to stand the shocking 
scenes of war. To march over dead men, to hear 
without concern the groanings of the wounded, — I 
say few men can stand such scenes, unless steeled 
by habit or fortified by military pride. 

" There must be a good army established ; men 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 21 

engaged for the war, a proper corps of officers, and 
then, after a proper time to disciphne the men, 
everything is to be expected. 

" The Congress goes upon a penurious plan. The 
present pay of the officers will not support them, 
and it is generally determined by the best officers 
to quit the service unless a more adequate provision 
is made for their support. The present establish- 
ment is not thought reputable. 

"The Congress has never furnished the number 
of men voted by near one half, certainly by above a 
third. Had we had numbers we need not have re- 
treated from Long Island or New York. But the 
extent of ground to guard rendered the retreat 
necessary ; otherwise the army would have been 
ruined by detachments. The enemy never could 
have driven us from Long Island and New York, if 
our rear had been secured. We must have an army 
to meet the enemy everywhere ; to act offensively 
as well as defensively. Our soldiers are as good as 
ever were, and were the officers half as good as the 
men, they would beat any army on the globe of 
equal numbers." 

These letters need no comment. How far, if in- 
deed it be an office of history to record the growth 
of controlling ideas, the history of this period is cor- 
rectly represented by Mr. Bancroft's " Greene had 
once before warned John Adams of the hopelessness 
of the contest; and again on the fourteenth he 
wrote, ' I still think you are playing a desperate 
game,' " — I leave to the reader to determine. Had 



22 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

an illustration of the anxiety with which thoughtful 
men looked forward to the menacino; future of this 
decisive year been required, a still more striking 
illustration might have been found in Washington's 
letter of December 18th, to his brother. " In a 
word, if every nerve is not strained to recruit the 
new army with all possible expedition, the game is 
nearly tip!'' Three days after these words were writ- 
ten Greene was writing to Governor Cooke of 
Rhode Island, " I think, notwithstanding the general 
disaffection of a certain order of people, the army 
will fill up ; if that be the case, nothing is to be 
feared." 

I cannot envy the filial heart or the historic eye 
that should find in these words a proof that, while 
Greene was full of hope, Washington despaired. 

II. Did Greene "reflect" upon Washington? 

It is no part of my duty to discuss the question 
of Washington's demeanor at Kip's Bay, however 
doubtful I may feel of the success of Mr. Bancroft's 
effort to reduce the violent outbreak of Washins;- 
ton's violent passions to a calm rosolve " to shame 
or inspirit his men by setting them an example of 
desperate courage." Nor should I have alluded to 
it if he had not taken occasion to make it the o^Dpor- 
tunity of an injurious insinuation against Greene. 
" Greene's words are," he says in the note on pages 
122, 123, " Fellows's and Parsons's whole brigade ran 
away from about fifty men, and left his Excellency 
on the ground within eighty yards of the enemy, 
and so vexed at the infamous conduct of the troops, 
that he sought death rather than life." 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 23 

" The embellishments of the narrative," says Mr. 
Bancroft, " which have been gradually wrought out 
till they have become self-contradictory and ludi- 
crous, may be traced to the camp. A bitter and jeal- 
ous rivalry, which the adjutant-general had assisted 
to foment, had grown up between the New England 
troops and those south of New England. Northern 
men very naturally found excuses for their breth- 
ren, and may have thought that Washington cen- 
sured them too severely ; but while I have had in 
my hands very many contemporary letters written 
by New-Englanders on the events of this campaign, 
I have never found in any one of them the least re- 
flection on Washington for his conduct in the field 
during any part of this day, unless the words of 
Greene are to be so interpreted." 

By what principle of interpretation they could be 
so wrested from their evident meaning it is difficult 
to see ; or even why such a conjecture should have 
been introduced except to cast a doubt upon 
Greene's love and reverence for Washington. That 
Washington's temper was violent no one who has 
come to the study of his history with an earnest 
love of truth will deny. It will be time enough to 
blame him for a gift of nature, when it can be shown 
that he ever, either as general or as president, per- 
mitted it to lead him to a hasty or an inconsiderate 
act. 

ni. Expedition against Staten Island. 

Continuing my examination, I find on page 176 : 
" In the following night, Mercer, at first accompanied 



24 ' NATHAN AEL GREENE. 

by Greene, made a descent upon Staten Island." If 
it was necessary to mention Greene at all in this 
connection, would it not have been fair to add, that 
the reason of his not following up the expedition in 
person was a sudden summons to head-quarters at 
Harlem? "On the night of the 15th," writes Mer- 
cer on the 17th of October, 1776, to the President of 
Congress,^'' " General Greene passed over with me to 
Staten Island, with part of the troops at this post. 
.... Orders from General Washington arrived at 
eleven at night which made it necessary for General 
Greene to repair immediately to Harlem." 

IV. Greene's Illusions and Murjmurs. 

On page 180 I read : " Lasher on the next day 
obeyed orders sent from Washington's camp to quit 
Fort Independence, which was insulated and must 
have fallen before any considerable attack ; but 
Greene, under the illusions of inexjierience, complained 
of the evacuation as premature and likely to damp 
the spirits of his troops, and wrote murmuringly to 
Washington that " the fort might have kept the en- 
emy at bay for several days." That the reader may 
have an opportunity of forming his own opinion of 
the nature of Greene's " illusions " and the tone of 
his " murmurs," I give the letter in full. He may, 
perhaps, be surprised to find that it contains no allu- 
sion to "the spirits of his (Greene's) troops," which, 
from Mr. Bancroft's mode of expression, he would, 
perhaps, have expected to find there. It occurs in a 
letter to Mifflin, as we shall see by and by, and be 

* Force, American Archives, Ser. V. Ch. IL 1093. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 25 

able to judge how far it is a complaint, and how far 
a just apprehension. 

"FOKT Lee, October 29, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — Colonel Lasher burnt the barracks 
yesterday morning at three o'clock ; he left all the 
cannon in the fort. I went out to examine the 
ground, and found between two and three hundred 
stand of small arms (that were out of repair) about 
two miles beyond King's Bridge ; a great number of 
spears, shot, shell, &c., too numerous to mention. I 
directed all the wagons on the other side to be em- 
ployed in getting the stores away, and expect to get 
it completed this morning. I forgot to mention five 
tons of bar iron that was left. I am sorry the bar- 
racks were not left standing a few days longer ; it 
would have given us an opportunity to have got off 
some of the boards. 

" I think that Fort Independence might have kept 
the enemy at bay for several days, but the troops 
here and on the other side are so much fatigued that 
it must have been a work of time. 

" Colonel Magaw showed me a letter from Colonel 
Reed, ordering the Rangers to march and join the 
army. Major Coburn was wounded in the Sunday 
action. Colonel Magaw says the Rangers are the 
only security to his lines. By keeping out constant 
patrols, their acquaintance with the ground enables 
them to discover the enemy's motions in every quar- 
ter. The Colonel petitions very hard for their stay. 
I told him I would send an express to learn your 
Excellency's further pleasure. The Colonel thinks 



26 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

if the Rangers leave him he must draw the garrison 
in from the lines. That would be a pity, as the re- 
doubt is not yet in any great forwardness. From 
the Sunday affair, I am more fully convinced that we 
can j^revent any ships from stopping the communi- 
cation, 

"I have forwarded eighty thousand musket car- 
tridges more under the care of a subaltern's guard, 
commanded by Lieutenant Pembleton of Colonel 
Railing's (Rawlings) regiment. 

" This moment heard of the action of yesterday " 
(battle of White Plains). " Can learn no particulars. 
God grant you protection and success. Colonel Craw- 
ford says he expects the action to be renewed this 
morning. I hope to be commanded wherever I can 
be the most useful. 

" I am, dear General, your most obedient and very 

humble servant, 

"N. Greene." 

V. Fort Washington. 

The eleventh chapter is devoted to Fort Washing- 
ton. The table of contents says, "Infatuation of 
Greene, 185 — Clear- judgment of Washington, 185 
— His instructions to Greene, 185 — Orders to pre- 
pare for evacuating Fort Lee, 186 — Greene dis- 
regards Washington's intentions, 188 — Grief of 
Washington, 189 — Want of vigilance in Greene, 
189 — Disingenuousness of Greene, 193 — Magna- 
nimity of Washington, 193." 

To this formidable array of accusations the text 
fully corresponds. " Greene, whose command now ex- 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 27 

tended to that fort (Washington), had not scrupled to 
increase its garrison by sending over between two 
and three hundred men," p. 18^. " On the last day 
of October Greene, who was as bhndly confident as 
Putnam, wrote to Washington for instructions ; but 
without waiting for them, he again reinforced Magaw 
with the rifle regiment of Rawlings," 184. " Greene 
was possessed with the same infatuation," 185. 
" Greene framed his measures on a system directly 
contrary to Washington's manifested intentions," 
187, 188. "Before the end of the thirteenth Washing- 
ton arrived at Fort Lee, and to his great grief found 

what Greene had done Greene, his best and most 

trusted officer, and the commander of the post, in- 
sisted that the evacuation was uncalled for, but would 
be attended with disastrous consequences," 188. " On 
the night following the fourteenth the vigilance of 
Greene so far slumbered that thirty flat-boats of the 
British passed his fort undiscovered," 189. "Greene, 
who was persuaded that he had sent over men 
' enough to defend themselves against the whole 
British army,' " 189. " Greene would never assume 
his share of responsibility for the disaster, and would 
never confess his glaring errors of judgment ; but 
wrongfully ascribed the defeat to a panic which had 
struck the men so ' that they fell a prey to their own 
fears,'" 193. 

Whether Greene was right or wrong in his belief 
that Fort Washington ought to be held, I shall not 
take upon me to say. It is a military question which 
none but military men are competent to decide. Some 
readers, however, may think it fair to afford him an 



28 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

opportunity of telling his reasons in his own words. 
They are given in the following letter to Washing- 
ton. _ 

"Fort Lee, November 9, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — Your Excellency's letter of the 8th 
this moment came to hand. I shall forward the letter 
to General Stevens by express. The stores at Dobbs's 
Ferry, I had just given orders to the Quartermaster 
to prepare wagons to remove them. I think the 
enemy will meet with some difficulty in crossing the 
river at Dobbs's Ferry ; however, 't is not safe to trust 
too much to the expected difficulties they may meet 
there. 

" By the letter that will accompany this, and was 
to have gone last night by Major Mifflin, your Ex- 
cellency will see what measures I took before your 
favor came to hand. The passing of the ships up 
the river is, to be sure, a full proof of the insufficiency 
of the obstructions in the river to stop the ships from 
going up ; but that garrison employs double the 
number of men to invest it that we have to occupy 
it. They must keep troops at King's Bridge, to pre- 
vent a communication with the country ; and they 
dare not leave a very small number, for fear our peo- 
ple should attack them. Upon the whole, I can- 
not help thinking the garrison is of advantage, and I 
cannot conceive the garrison to be in any great dan- 
ger. The men can be brought off at any time ; but 
the stores may not be so easily removed, yet I think 
they can be got off in spite of them, if matters grow 
desperate. 

" This post is of no importance only in conjunction 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 29 

with Mount Washington. I was over there last even- 
ing : the enemy seems to be disposing matters to 
besiege the place ; but Colonel Magaw thinks it will 
take them till December expires before they can 
carry it. If the enemy don't find it an object of im- 
portance they won't trouble themselves about pos- 
sessing it. Our giving it up will open a free com- 
munication with the country by the way of King's 
Bridge, that must be a great advantage to them and 
injury to us. If the enemy cross the river, I shall 
follow your Excellency's advice respecting the cattle 
and forage. These measures, however cruel in ap- 
pearance, were ever my maxims of war in the de- 
fence of a country : in an attack they would be very 
improper. 

" By this express several packets from Congress are 
forwarded to you. I shall collect our whole strength 
and watch the motions of the enemy, and pursue 
such measures for the future as circumstances render 
necessary. 

" As I have your Excellency's permission, I skall 
order General Stevens on as far as Equacannock at 
least. That is an important pass ; I am fortifying it 
as fast as possible. 

"I am, dear Sir, your most obedient and very 
humble servant, 

"N. Greene." 

It will hardly be denied that there is weight in 
these considerations ; and it is impossible, as we fol- 
low the army in its painful retreat through the 
Jerseys, not to wish that Fort Washington could 



30 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

have been preserved, and the necessity of that 
retreat avoided. Neither will it be denied that the 
defence of a half-finished redoubt and a rail-fence 
covered with hay, at Bunker Hill, against the best 
troops of the British army, afforded some grounds for 
hoping that a post which nature had made so strong 
might he held against an enemy no stronger. That 
American yeoman had not lost their skill or their 
courage in acquiring the discipline of regular sol- 
diers, was proved in the same month of the next year 
at Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin. Greene may have 
been mistaken ; the questionable logic of results is 
against him; but his matured judgment still con- 
tinued to approve what his immature judgment had 
suggested, and the conqueror of the South, after the 
experience of five campaigns, still believed that the 
possession of Fort Washington was worth a struggle. 
Mr. Bancroft calls this adherence to his opinion a 
refusal to " achioivledge his glaring errors of judgments 
Strange that Washington should have continued to 
rely upon such a man ! He finds disingenuousness in 
Greene's attributing the loss of the Fort to a panic ; 
Magaw said the same thing. Still, the only ques- 
tion which a civilian can be held competent to decide 
is, first, how far, as a question of discipline, Greene 
was justified in reinforcing the garrison before the 
eighth of November, and, secondly, in continuing to 
hold the Fort after Washington's letter of that day. 
The first question has been answered by Mr. Sparks, 
who not only wrote with the documents before him, 
but who brought to the study of them a candor of 
spirit, a rectitude of intention, and a soundness of 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 31 

judgment which have secured him a place second 
only to that of Peter Force, if second to any, among 
the students of our Revolutionary annals. 

" General Greene," says this excellent man, whose 
name I cannot write without a thrill of tenderness 
and gratitude, both for the services which he ren- 
dered the history of my country and the parental 
kindness with which he aided me in my study of it, 
— "General Greene, who was now stationed at Fort 
Lee (formerly called Fort Constitution), gave notice, 
on the 31st of October, that the enemy had taken 
possession of Fort Independence, on the north side 
of Kingsbridge, having made their appearance in 
that quarter two days before ; that he had previously 
caused everything valuable to be removed, and the 
bridges to be cast down. " I should be glad to know 
your Excellency's mind," he adds, about holding all 
the ground from Kingsbridge to the lines. If we 
attempt to hold the ground, the garrison must be 
reinforced, but if the garrison is to be drawn into 
Fort Washington, and we only keep that, the 
number of troops on the island is too large." In 
reply, the Commander-in-Chief wrote, that the ques- 
tion could be answered only by being on the spot, 
and knowing all the circumstances, and that he 
should submit the whole to the judgment of General 
Greene, reminding him of the original design to gar- 
rison the works, and preserve the lower lines as long 
as they could be kept, and thus, by holding a com- 
munication across the river, to stop the enemy's ships 
from passing up and down." * Up to the end of Octo- 

* Sparks's Writings of Washington, IV. 158, note. 



O^ NATHANAEL GREENE. 

ber, then, Greene had done nothing to dimmish the 
confidence which Washington placed in his judgment 
and sincerity. From the beginning of November 
to the eighth of it he had full authority to follow his 
own judgment. Up to the same day Washington 
himself believed that Fort Washington might be 
held. 

On the eighth of November Washington wrote : 
"The late passage of three vessels up the North 
Kiver, of which we have just received advice, is so 
plain a proof of the inefl&ciency of all the obstruc- 
tions we have thrown into it, that I cannot but think 
it will fully justify a change in the disposition which 
has been made. If we cannot prevent vessels from 
passing up, and the enemy are possessed of the 
surrounding country, what valuable purpose can 
it answer to attempt to hold a post from which the 
expected benefit cannot be had ? I am therefore 
inclined to think that it will not be prudent to hazard 
the men and stores at Mount Washington ; hut as 
you are on the spot, I leave it to you to give such 
orders as to evacuating Mount Washington, as you may 
judge best, and so far revoking the order given to 
Colonel Magaw to defend it to the last" 

If we weigh these expressions, and give them their 
true force, we shall see, first of all, that Washington, 
on the eighth, was inclined to think, — not that he 
positively thought : in other words, he was wavering 
in the opinion which he had previously held, and 
again authorized Greene to decide for him, because 
Greene was on the spot and he was not. Greene, 
for the reasons assigned in his letter of the ninth, 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 33 

which I have already laid before the reader, decided 
to strengthen the garrison and try to hold the fort. 
This Washington knew, at least, as early as the 
eleventh. On the thirteenth he reached Fort Lee, 
where he remained part, if not the whole of the next 
day, as his letter of that date to the President of 
Congress from "General Greene's Quarters" shows. 
For a part of two days, then, and three days before 
the attack, he also was on the spot, and the reason for 
intrusting the decision to Greene ceased. It was in 
his power at any time from the thirteenth to the 
morning of the sixteenth to have visited the garri- 
son and examined for himself the question of evac- 
uation. But was it in his power to remove the 
troops ? If we take literally a passage in his letter 
of the 19th November to his brother, it was not. 
"I did not care," he says, " to give an absolute order 
for withdrawing the garrison till I could get round 
and see the situation of things, and then it became 
too late, as the fort was invested." But on the four- 
teenth, when he had already been part of a day if 
not a whole one at " General Greene's Quarters," he 
writes the President of Congress, " I propose to stay 
in this neighborhood a few days, in which time I ex- 
pect the designs of the enemy will be more dis- 
closed, and their incursions be made in this quarter, 
or their investiture of Fort Washington, if they are 
intended." The earliest mention that I find of the 
investment is on the fifteenth. Might not the same 
energy and power of combination which, in twenty- 
four hours, prepared the means for removing " nine 
thousand men, .... with their provisions, military 



34 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

stores, field artillery and ordnance, except a few 
worthless iron cannon," (I use Mr. Bancroft's words, 
p. 105,) "and transj)orted them from within ear-shot 
of the enemy across the East River where it is broad- 
est and swiftest, have removed two thousand six 
hundred men across the North River, where the 
breadth is less and the current not so strong, and 
from a position which made it difficult for the enemy 
to discover their movements ? That this was possi- 
ble, Greene always believed ; that it was not impos- 
sible, Washington must have believed when he wrote 
Maojaw that if he would hold out till nioht he would 
try to get him off. In the opinion of Stedman, the 
best English military historian of the war, the " grand 
error was in not withdrawing the garrison the even- 
ing preceding the assault." (Stedman's Historj^ of 
the American War, Vol. I. p. 218, 4th ed.) However 
this may be, the documents, fairly and candidly con- 
sidered, admit of but one conclusion : that Greene's 
responsibility ceased with Washington's arrival at 
Fort Lee on the thirteenth. When Greene's ceased, 
whose began ? 

One more illustration of the style of Mr. Bancroft's 
censures upon Greene's part in the fall of Fort Wash- 
ington : " Greene, whose command now extended to 
that fort, had not scrupled to increase its garrison," 
184. Very true; but if Mr. Bancroft had added the 
following sentence from Greene's letter of October 
24th, the effect upon the reader's mind would have 
been somewhat modified. " General Putnam re- 
quested a party of men to reinforce them at Mount 
Washington. I sent between two and three hundred 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 35 

of Colonel Durkee's regiment. Please to inform me 
whether your Excellency approves thereof" If we 
bear in mind that at this time Washington himself 
was in favor of holding Fort Washington, it will be 
difficult to discover anything in Greene's conduct but 
an eager desire to do his duty. When, indeed, did 
any other desire ever find entrance into that pure 
and earnest mind ? And in the performance of that 
duty I have not found a single instance in which, 
acting before orders, he did not immediately com- 
municate his action to Washington for approval. 

" And again on the last day of October, Greene, 
who was as blindly confident as Putnam, wrote 
to Washington for instructions; but without wait- 
ing for them, he again reinforced Magaw with 
the rifle regiment of Rawlings," p. 184. Would it 
not be fairly inferred from this statement that 
Greene had said nothing to Washington about this 
reinforcement ? Yet in the very letter in which he 
asks for instructions he writes, " I shall reinforce 
Colonel Magaw with Colonel Rawlings's regiment, un- 
til I hear from your Excellency respecting the mat- 
ter." This " matter " was the " holding the ground 
from King's Bridge to the lower lines," which, as we 
have already seen (letter of October 31), implied a 
strengthening of the garrison. Greene probably 
thought himself entitled to the praise of forethought 
rather than to the blame of assumption. Remember, 
too, that Washington in his answer, as we have also 
seen, refers to the original motive for holding the . 
lines in a manner to show that he was still in favor 
of holding them. 



36 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

YI. Greene did not scruple, &c. 

Of the manner in which Mr. Bancroft has invited 
censure of Greene even strono;er than that which he 
has expressed ; of the skilful selection of such terms 
as " did not scrwpUl' where history would have said 
did not hesitate, if the severe and cautious muse of 
truth had deemed any qualification necessary in the 
statement of a simple fact ; of the fidelity with which 
he transforms Greene's " any great danger " into any 
conceivable danger ; of the fairness of construction by 
which, in one of the most insidious sentences ever 
framed, coupling Greene's name with Lee's, he rep- 
resents an honest act of judgment on a question 
referred to his decision as a resolute intention to 
disobey, for selfish ends, the orders of his superiors ; 
of the insinuation that in holding — though with 
Washington's knowledge — a direct correspondence 
with Congress, he was trying to build up for himself 
a reputation independent of the Commander-in-Chief; 
of the historic justice with which an officer, whose 
zeal, activity, and incessant watchfulness are placed 
beyond question by documentary evidence, and the 
unvarying testimony of all who knew him, is made 
personally responsible for the failure of imperfectly 
trained soldiers to distinguish flat-boats cautiously 
stealing at midnight up the Hudson, where the 
palisades on one side and Mount Washington on the 
other cast their deepest shadows on the waters of the 
broad river ; of the boldness with which the charge 
of disingenuousness is brought against the man whom 
Washington loved in life and wept for in death as 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 37 

" great and good," I have nothing to say. The ques- 
tion between Mr. Bancroft and me is not a personal, 
but a historical question, and I would wish to treat 
it with the sobriety and the exactness of history. 
But I may venture to remind him, that, while no his- 
torian can hope to escape all error, no one also can 
be said to have given satisfactory evidence of his 
love of truth who withholds from his readers the 
means of testing the justice of his judgments and 
the accuracy of his assertions. 

VII. Greene's easy, sanguine Disposition. 

In the 12th chapter, which is devoted to the re- 
treat through the Jerseys, Mr. Bancroft continues 
his accusations. " His (Howe's) first object was Fort 
Lee, .... which was in the more danger, as Greene, 
indulging his easy, sanguine disposition, had neg- 
lected Washington's timely order to prepare for its 
evacuation by the removal of its stores," 194. 

As usual, Mr. Bancroft gives no authority for at- 
tributing an "easy, sanguine disposition" to Greene. 
Henry Lee, who served under him and knew him 
well, ascribes to him a habit of mind which it is some- 
what difficult to reconcile with such a disposition. 
" No man," says he, " was more familiarized to dis- 
passionate and minute research than was General 
Greene. He was patient in hearing everything of- 
fered, never interrupting or slighting what was said ; 
and having possessed himself of the subject fully, 
he would enter into a critical comparison of the op- 
posite arguments, convincing his hearers, as he pro- 
gressed, with the propriety of the decision he was 



38 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

about to pronounce." '^ But the accusation is of so 
grave a nature, that I purpose to give the reader an 
opportunity of forming his own opinion, by showing 
how this " easy, sanguine " man was employed dur- 
ing his command at Fort Lee. 

" Fort Constitution, October 12th, five o'clock, 1776. 

" Dear General : — I am informed a large body of 
the enemy's troops have landed at Frogg's Point. 
If so, I suppose the troops here will be wanted 
there. I have three brigades in readiness to rein- 
force you. General Clinton's brigade will march 
first, General Nixon's next, and then the troop's un- 
der the command of General Boberdeau. I don't 
apprehend aii}^ danger from this quarter at present. 
If the forces on your side are not sufficient, I hope 
these three brigades may be ordered over, and I 
with them, and leave General Ewing's brigade to 
guard the post. If the troops are wanted on your 
side, or likely to be, in the morning, they should be 
got over in the latter part of the night, as the ship- 
ping may move up from below, and impede if not 
totally stop the troops from passing. I wait your 
Excellency's further commands. Should be glad 
to know where the enemy has landed, and their 
number. 



" I am, &c., 



"N. Greene. 



" P. S. — The tents upon Staten Island have been 
all struck, as far as discovery has been made." 

* Lee's Memoirs, Vol. U. p. 39. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 39 

This may correspond to Mr. Bancroft's idea of 
an easy, sanguine disposition ; although I think that 
most historians would find in it promptness, energy, 
and devotion to the cause. But let us take a few 
more specimens. 

" Camp at Fort Lee (lately Fort Coxstitution), 
"October 20, 1776. 

"To THE President of Congress: — 

" Sir : — I was at head-quarters near King's Bridge, 
with his Excellency General Washington, last night, 
and on leaving him was desired to send by express 
to acquaint you that the army are in great want of 
a large supply of cartridges, which no person can 
be spared to make. Therefore he requests that you 
will order all that are now made up at Philadelphia 
to be sent forward in light wagons that can travel 
with great despatch, as they are really much wanted ; 
and as none can be made up here, that persons be 
employed at Philadelphia to continue at that busi- 
ness, to furnish a full supply for the army. 

" Mr. Commissary Lowry is in great want of a 
supply of salt, which he begs may be sent to Tren- 
ton, to enable him to furnish provisions for the army 
at King's Bridge, which are much wanted, and the 
supply from Connecticut may be shortly cut off, and 
I have great reason to apprehend the evil will soon 
take place, if not wholly, in part. The article of salt 
is essentially necessary, and must be procured, if pos- 
sible. Fresh provisions cannot be passed over with- 
out great difficulty ; and the state of health of the 
troops from a laxed habit requires a supply of salt. 



40 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

Mr. Lowry mentions the Council of Safety of Penn- 
sylvania having a quantity. 

"I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

" Nathanael Greene." 

"Fort Lee, October 24, 1776. 

"To General Washington: — 

" Dear Sir : — Enclosed you have a copy of the 
letter in answer to mine to Congress, relative to car- 
tridges. As soon as the cartridges come up they 
shall be forwarded. Colonel Biddle has written to 
Amboy for ninety thousand that are at that post. 

" We have collected all the wagons in our power, 
and sent over. Our people have had extreme hard 
duty : the common guards, common fatigue, and the 
extraordinary guards, extraordinary fatigue ; for the 
removal of the stores, and forwarding the provisions 
has kept every man on duty. 

"• General Putnam requested a party of men to 
reinforce them at Mount Washington. I sent be- 
tween two and three hundred of Colonel Durkee's 
regiment. Please to inform me whether your Excel- 
lency approves thereof 

" We shall get a sufficient quantity of provisions 
over to-day for the garrison at Fort Washington. 
General Mifflin thinks it not advisable to pull the 
barracks down yet. He has hopes of our army re- 
turning to that ground for winter quarters. I think 
this would be running too great a risk to leave them 
standing in expectation of such an event, there be- 
ing several strong fortifications in and about King's 
Bridge. If the enemy should throw in a thousand 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 41 

or fifteen hundred men they could cut off our com- 
munications effectually, and, as the state of the bar- 
racks are, they would find exceedingly good cover 
for the men. But if we were to take the barracks 
down, if the boards were not removed, it would in 
a great measure deprive them of that advantage. 
However, I have not had it in my power to do 
either as yet. 

" I have directed all the wagons that were on the 
other side to be employed in picking up the scat- 
tered boards about the encampment. I believe, 
from what I saw yesterday in riding over the 
ground, they will amount to many thousands. As 
soon as we have got these together I purpose to 
begin upon the barracks. In the mean time should 
be glad to know if your Excellency has any further 
orders to give respecting the business. 

"I have directed the commissary and quarter- 
master-general of this department to lay in provi- 
sion and provender upon the back road to Philadel- 
phia for twenty thousand men for three months. 
The principal magazine will be at Equacanack. I 
shall fortify it as soon as possible, and secure that 
post and the pass to the bridge, which is now re- 
paired, and fit for an army to pass over with the 
baggage and artillery. 

" I rejoice to hear of the defeat of that vile traitor 
Major Eogers, and his party of tories ; though I am 
exceeding sorry to hear it cost us so brave an offi- 
cer as Major Greene. 

" I am, with great respect, your Excellency's obe- 
dient servant, 

"Nathanael Greene." 

6 



42 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

" Fort Lee, October 27, 1776. 

"To General Mifflin: — 

" Dear Sir : — By Major Howell you will receive 
one hundred and nineteen thousand musket car- 
tridges. Part arrived to-day, and part last night. 
As soon as the remainder comes up from Amboy 
and Philadelphia, they shall be sent forward. I 
have been to view the roads again, and fixed upon 
Aquacanack, Springfield, Boundbrook, Princetown, 
and Trentown to establish the magazines at. Tren- 
town and Aquacanack to be the principal ones, the 
others only to serve to support the troops in pass- 
ing from one to the other. They are all inland 
posts, and I hope the stores will be secure. I have 
ordered all the cannon from Amboy except two 
eighteen-pounders and two field-pieces. I have 
directed them to be sent to Springfield, Bound- 
brook, and Aquacanack, to secure the stores. 

" The people have been employed on the other 
side in getting the boards together at Fort Wash- 
ington and the ferry. Some have been brought 
from King's Bridge. To-day I sent up to Colonel 
Lasher to know what assistance he could give 
towards taking down the barracks, and bringing oiF 
the boards, and had for answer that he had orders 
to burn the barracks, quit the post, and join the army 
by the way of the North Kiver, at the White Plains. 

" We have had a considerable skirmish on York 
Island to-day. The cannonade began in the morn- 
ing, and held until evening, with very short inter- 
missions. A ship moved up opposite Fort No. 1. 
Colonel Magaw got down an eighteen-pounder and 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 43 

fired sixty shot at her, twenty-six of which went into 
her. She sHpped her cable, and left her anchor, 
and was towed off by four boats. I think we must 
have killed a considerable number of her men, as 
the confusion and distress exceeded all description. 
Our artillery behaved incomparably well. Colonel 
Magaw is charmed at their conduct in firing at the 
ship, and in the fields. I left the island at three 
o'clock this afternoon. We had lost but one man : 
he was killed by a shell that fell upon his head. We 
have brought off some of the enemy from the field 
of battle, and more are still lying on the ground 
dead. 

" I am anxious to know the state of the troops in 
the grand army : whether they are high or low- 
spirited ; whether well or ill posted ; whether a bat- 
tle is expected or not. We must govern our oper- 
ations by yours. The troops here and on the other 
side are in good spirits, but I fear quitting Fort In- 
dependence will oblige Magaw to draw in his forces 
into the garrison, as the enemy will have a passage 
open upon his back. I fear it will damp the spirits of 
his troops. He did not expect it so soon. If the 
barracks are not burnt in the morning, and the enemy 
don't press too hard upon us, we will try to get 
away some of the boards. 

" I am, dear General, your obedient servant, 

"Nath. Greene." 

This last paragraph contains, as will be seen, the 
" fear for the spirits of the troops," which, by an in- 
genious and most suggestive juxtaposition, Mr. Ban- 



44 NATHANAEL GKEENE. 

croft leads the reader to look upon as a part of the 
" murmurmg " letter of the 29th to Washington. 

"Fort Lee, New Jersey, October 28th, 1776. 

" To THE President of Congress : — 

" Sir : — This being a critical hour, when the hoj)es 
and fears of the city and country are continually 
alarmed, and yesterday there being a considerable 
heavy cannonade most of the day, I have thought it 
advisable to forward an express wdth an account of 
the action of the day. The communication between 
this and the grand division of the army is in great 
measure cut off; therefore it will be some time before 
you have any account from his Excellency General 
Washington. 

" A ship moved up the river early in the morning 
above our lower lines, right opposite to Fort No. 1, 
near old head-quarters at Morriss's; she began a 
brisk cannonade upon the shore. Colonel Magaw, 
who commands at Fort Washington, got down an 
eighteen-pounder and fired sixty rounds at her : 
twenty-six went through her : the gun was mostly 
loaded with two balls. She was annoj^ed consider- 
ably by two eighteen-pounders from this shore. 
The confusion and distress that appeared on board 
the ship exceeds all descrij)tion. Without doubt she 
lost a great number of men. She was towed off" by 
four boats sent from the other ships to her assistance ; 
she slipped her cable and left her anchor. Had the 
tide run flood one half-hour longer we should have 
sunk her. At the same time the fire from the ships 
began, the enemy brought up their field-pieces and 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 45 

made a disposition to attack the line ; but Colonel 
Magaw had so happily disposed and arranged his 
men as to put them out of conceit of that manoeu- 
vre. 

"A cannonade and fire with small arms continued 
almost all day, with very little intermission. We 
lost one man only. Several of the enemy were 
killed ; two or three of our people got and brought 
off the field and several more were left there. The 
firing ceased last evening, and has not been renewed 
this morning. 

" General Washington and General Howe are very 
near neighbors. Some decisive stroke is hourly 
expected. God grant it may be a happy one ! The 
troops are in good spirits, and in every engagement 
since the retreat from New York have given the 
enemy a drubbing. 

" I have the honor to be your most obedient 

humble servant, „ tvt ^ 

' "Nathanael Greene. 

If these letters fail to display Greene's vigilance 
and activity, the two last certainly display his 
modesty ; for in his account of this skirmish, which 
he evidently considered a creditable one, he gives all 
the credit to Magaw. Even Mr. Bancroft has admit- 
ted "that Greene animated the defence by his 
presence." But let us see what else he was doing 
at this time. 

"Fort Lee, October 29, 1776. 

" To General Washington : — 

" Dear Sir : — Enclosed is an estimate made of the 
provisions and provender necessary to be laid in at 



46 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

the different posts between this and Philadelphia, to 
form a communication, and for the support of the 
troops passing and repassing from the different states. 

" Your Excellency will please to examine it, and 
signify your pleasure. Should the estimate be larger 
than is necessary for the consumption of the army, 
very little or no loss can arise, as the articles will be 
laid in at a season when the prices of things are at 
the lowest rates, and the situation will admit of an 
easy transportation to market by water. 

" The shijDS have fallen down the North Eiver, and 
the troops which advanced upon Harlem Plains and 
on the hill where the Monday's action was, have 
drawn within their lines again. 

" I received the prisoners taken and have forward- 
ed them to Philadelphia. I enclose you a return of 
the troops at this post, who are chiefly raw and un- 
disciplined. 

" I am with great respect your Excellency's most 
obedient humble servant, 

"Nathanael Greene." 

Another letter to Washington, of the same date, 
has already been given above. On the 31st Greene 
again writes : — 

"Fort Lee, October 31, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — The enemy have possession of Fort 
Independence on the heights above King's Bridge. 
They made their appearance the night before last. 
We had got everything of value away. The bridges 
are cut down, and I gave Colonel Magaw orders to 
stop the road between the mountains. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 47 

" I .should be glad to know your Excellency's mind 
about holding all the ground from King's Bridge to 
the lower lines. If we attempt to hold the ground 
the garrison must still be reinforced; but if the 
garrison is to draw into Mount Washington, and only 
keep that, the number of troops on the island is too 
large. 

" We are not able to determine with any certainty 
whether the troops that have taken post above King's 
Bridge are the same troops or not that were in and 
about Harlem several days past. They disappeared 
from below all at once, and some time after about fifty 
boats full of men were seen going up towards Hunt's 
Point, and that evening the enemy were discovered 
at Fort Independence. We suspect them to be the 
same troops that were engaged in the Sunday 
skirmish. 

"Six officers belonging to privateers that were 
taken by the enemy made their escape last night. 
They inform me that they were taken by the last 
fleet that came in. They had about six thousand 
foreign troops on board, one quarter of which had the 
black scurvy and died very fast. 

" Seventy sail of transports and ships fell down to 
Red Hook. They were bound for Rhode Island ; had 
on board about three thousand troops. Thdy also 
inform that after the Sunday action an officer of dis- 
tinction was brought into the city badly wounded. 

" The ships have come up the river to their station 
again, a little below their lines. Several deserters 
from Powle's Hook have come over. They all 
report that General Howe is wounded, as did those 



48 NATHAN AEL GREENE. 

from the fleet. It appears to be a prevailing opinion 
in the land and sea service. 

"I forwarded your Excellency a return of the 
trooj)s at this post, and a copy of a plan for establish- 
ing magazines. I could wish to know your pleasure 
as to the magazines as soon as possible. 

"I shall reinforce Colonel Magaw with Colonel 
Rawlings's regiment until I hear from your Excellency 
respecting the matter. 

" The motions of the grand army will best deter- 
mine the propriety of endeavoring to hold all the 
ground from King's Bridge to the lower lines. I 
shall be as much on the Island of York as possible, so 
as not to neglect the duties of my own department. 

" I can learn no satisfactory accounts of the action 
of the other day. 

" I am, &c., 

"Nathanael Greene." 

Again, on the 5th of November, from 

"King's Feret, November 5th, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — Colonel Harrison wrote me you were 
in great want of flour. 'T is attended with very 
great difficulty to bring it up from Fort Lee by land. 
Wagons can't be got to transport a sufficient supply 
for your army. At Dobbs's Ferry there are eight or 
nine hundred barrels brought from the other side. 
I have directed Colonel Tupper to load a number of 
the pettiaugers and flat-bottom boats and send them 
up to Peekskill. Our troops are so arranged along 
shore that I am in hopes to keep a passage open 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 49 

for this mode of conveyance. If it can be done it 
will save an amazing expense. 

" I found everything in this place in the utmost 
confusion, — the wagons and flour detained for 
want of boats and assistance to transport them over. 
I shall send Captain Pond hither as soon as I get 
back, to take charge of the public stores here and to 
transport the things across. Colonel Tupper is to 
convey the pettiaugers by the ships, and if the 
barges are manned the boats are to be run on shore, 
and Major Clark, who commands a party opposite the 
ships, is to protect them. 

" I shall attempt to transport public stores from 
Burdett's Ferry, if the enemy make no new disposi- 
tion. The utmost care shall be taken that nothing; 
falls into the enemy's hands. 

" I am informed by Colonel Harrison that your 
Excellency approves of the plan for forming the 
magazines. I have directed the Commissaries of the 
department to lay in the provisions as far as possible, 
and the Quartermaster-General is exerting himself 
to lay in provender. 

" Many of our people have got into huts. The 
tents are sent forward as fast as the people get their 
huts complete. 

" Should this ferry be wanted through the winter 
the landing must be altered. I can, by altering the 
road, shorten the distance two miles, one by land, 
the other by water. Where it now is it freezes up 
very soon ; where I propose it, it is open all winter. 

" I am now in the State of New York, and am in- 
formed by Colonel Hawkes Hay that the militia 



50 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

which he commands refuse to do duty. They say 
that General Howe has promised them peace, Hberty, 
and safety ; and that is all they want. What is to 
be done with them ? This spirit and temper should 
be checked in its infancy. I purpose to send the 
Colonel about fifty men, and have directed the 
Colonel to acquaint them, if they refuse to do duty 
agreeable to the orders of the State, that I will send 
up a regiment here and march them to Fort Lee, to 
do duty there. I beg your Excellency's further ad- 
vice. 

" I am informed the Virginia regiments are coming 
on. I wish I could form a party sufficiently strong 
to make a little diversion in the rear of the enemy by 
the way of King's Bridge. The Hessians have relaid 
the bridge, and been across ; but yesterday morning 
I believe they all went back again. What does your 
Excellency think of such a manoeuvre ? Is it jjractica- 
ble ? Has it the appearance of being successful if 
attempted and well conducted ? 

" We have a flying report that General Gates has 
defeated Burgoyne. We also hear that a party of 
Hessians had deserted over to us. I wish to know 
the truth of both reports. 

All things were quiet at Fort Lee and York Island 
yesterday at noon. 

" The people seem to be much alarmed at Phila- 
delphia at the success of the enemy. The country 
is greatly alarmed at having their grain and hay 
burnt; yet I believe it will answer a most valuable 
purpose. I wish it had been earlier agreed upon. 

" I am informed Hugh Gaine, the printer, is gone 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 51 

into New York. I have ordered all the boats stove 
from Burdett's Ferry to Hobrock, and from Powley's 
Hook to Bergen Point, to stop the communication. 
There is a vile generation here as well as with you. 
The committee from Philadelphia for inquiring into 
the state of the army, complains that enlisting orders 
are not given out. Please to let me know your 
pleasure. 

" I am, &c., 

"N. Greene." 



Two days after he writes again from Fort Lee : — 

" Fort Lee, November 7th, 1 776. 

"Dear Sir: — By an express from Major Clark, 
stationed at Dobbs's Ferry, I find the enemy are en- 
camped right opposite, to the number of between 
three and five thousand, and the Major adds, from 
their disposition and search after boats they design 
to cross the river, A frigate and two transports or 
provision boats passed the chevaux de frise night be- 
fore last ; they were prodigiously shattered from the 
fire of our cannon. The same evening Colonel Tup- 
per attempted passing the ships with the pettiaugers 
loaded with flour. The enemy manned several 
barges, two tenders, and a row galley, and attacked 
them. Our people run the pettiaugers ashore and 
landed and defended them. The enemy attempted 
to land several times, but were repulsed. The fire 
lasted about an haur and a half, and the enemy 
moved off. Colonel Tupper still thinks he can trans- 
port the provisions in flat-boats. A second attempt 



52 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

shall be speedily made. We lost one man mortally 
wounded. 

" General Mercer writes me the Virginia troops are 
coming on. They are now at Trent Town. He pro- 
poses an attack on Staten Island ; but the motions 
of the enemy are such I think it necessary for them 
to come forward as fast as possible. On York Island 
the enemy have taken possession of the far hill next 
to Spiten Devil. I think they will not be able to 
penetrate any further. There appears to be about 
fifteen hundred of them. From the enemy's motions, 
I should be apt to suspect they were retreating from 
your army, or, at least, altering their operations. 

" Mr. Lovell, who at last is enlarged from his con- 
finement, reports that Colonel Allen, his fellow-pris- 
oner, was informed that transports were getting in 
readiness to sail at a moment's warning sufficient to 
transport fifteen thousand men. 

" The officers of Colonel Hand's regiment are here 
with enlisting orders. The officers of the Pennsyl- 
vania regiments think it a grievance, (such of them 
as are commissioned for the new establishment,) that 
the officers of other regiments should have the priv- 
ilege of enlisting their men before they get orders. 
I have stopped it until I learn your Excellency's 
pleasure. General Ewing is very much opposed to 
it. You '11 please to favor me with a line on the 
subject. 

" I am, &c., &c., 

" Nathl. Greene." 

I add one more specimen of this " easy, sanguine 
disposition." 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 53 

"Fort Lee, November 10, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — Your Excellency's favor by Colonel 
Harrison of the Sth came to hand last evenino;. I 
am taking every measure in my power to oppose 
the enemy's landing, if they attempt crossing the 
river into the Jerseys. I have about five hundred 
men posted at the dijfferent passes in the mountains 
fortifying. About five hundred more are marching 
from Amboy directly for Dobbs's Ferry. General 
Mercer is with me now. I shall send him up to take 
the command of these immediately. I have directed 
the General to have everything removed out of the 
enemy's way, particularly cattle, carriages, hay and 
grain. The flour at Dobbs's Ferry is all moved from 
that place, and I have directed wagons to transport 
it to Clark's and Orange towns. I was at Dobbs's 
Ferry last night, left it at sundown ; saw no new 
movements of the enemy. The enemy landed from 
on board the ships many bales of goods supposed to 
be clothing. T am sure the enemy cannot land at 
Dobbs's Ferry, it will be so hedged up by night. The 
flats run off a great distance ; they can't get near 
the shore with their ships. If the enemy attempts 
to effect a landing at all, they'll attempt it at Naiacks 
or Haverstraw Bay. I wish their intelligences may 
not be calculated to deceive us. Methinks if the 
enemy intended crossing the river they would not 
give us several days to prepare to oppose them. 
They might have prepared their measures, lain con- 
cealed until they had got everything in readiness to 
cross the river, and then effected it at once. It might 
have been so much easier accomplished that way 



54 NATHAXAEL GREENE. 

than it can now, and so many more advantages ob- 
tained in getting possession of the grain, hay, cattle, 
wagons, and horses, that I cannot help suspecting it 
to be only a feint to lead our attention astray, I 
wish it may not turn out so. However, I shall exert 
myself as much to be in readiness as if they had 
actually landed, and make the same disposition to op- 
pose them as if I was certain they intended to cross. 

" I shall keep a good intelligent officer at Bergen 
and another at Ball's Ferry to watch the motions of 
the ships. 

" Your Excellency's letter to General Putnam this 
moment came to hand. / have ordered the Quartei^- 
master-General to send off all the superfluous stores, 
and the commissaries to hold themselves in readiness 
to provide for the troops at Dobbs's Ferry and Haver- 
straw Bay. 

" I have written to Colonel Hawkes Hay to have 
the road altered at King's Ferry. I directed Colonel 
Tupper to send up to that Ferry all the spare boats. 
I had given orders for collecting and scutthng all the 
boats before your Excellency's letter came to hand 
on the subject. Our numbers are small for the 
duties we have to go through, but I hope our exer- 
tions may be in some proportion to your Excellency's 
expectation. Sixty or seventy sail of shipping from 
Froo;G;'s Point and Morrisania have flxllen down the 
East River to New York. In m}'^ next I will enclose 
your Excellency a return of the stores of all kinds at 
this post, and take your further directions as to the 
disposition of them. 

" Believe me, dear General, to be, &c., 

"Nathanael Greene." 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 55 

I have been thus profuse of illustration, because I 
was anxious to let Greene paint himself How far 
the easy could be attributed to the author of such 
letters and the doer of such things I leave the reader 
to decide. Against the sanguine I have nothing to 
say. 

VIII. Neglect of Orders. 

The accusation of neglect to obey " Washington's 
timely order to prepare for its (Fort Lee's) evacuation 
by the removal of its stores^' would be more serious 
if it were not disproved by documents which are 
published by Force, in volumes cited by Mr. Ban- 
croft. It would be an insult to the industry upon 
which he justly prides himself, to suppose he had not 
seen them. The order is given in Washington's letter 
of the 8th of November. " You will, therefore, im- 
mediately have all the stores removed which you do 
not deem necessary for your defence." Mr. Bancroft's 
statement would have been more accurate if he had 
said superfluous stores instead of " its stores " ; although 
this would not have been so easy to reconcile with 
the idea of evacuation, of which Washington says 
nothing, as with the idea of defence, to which he 
expressly refers. Greene's answer is given in his 
letter of the 10th, in which, after stating that " the 
flour at Dobbs's Ferry is all removed from that place, 
and I have directed wagons to transport it to 
Clarke's and Orange towns," he says, in another 
part and another connection, " / have ordered the 
Quartermaster-General to send off all the superfluous 



5G NATH-^NAEL GREENE. 

stores, and the commissaries to hold themselves in 
readiness to provide for the troops at Dobbs's Ferry 
and Haverstraw Bay." That these ^^superfluous 
stores " were the stores at Fort Lee would be evident 
from the closing paragraph of this letter, if it were 
not already evident from the connection in which it 
stands. ^^ In my next" that paragraph reads, '^ I will 
enclose your Excellency a return of the stores of all kinds 
at this post, and take your further directions as to the dis- 
position of themr Why a return of " the stores of all 
kinds " in answer to an express order to " remove the 
stores not necessary for defence" unless the '•' stores not 
necessary" had been removed or were about to be 
removed ? Why "-further orders" unless the orders 
already received had already been or were being 
obeyed ? In historical evidence as in legal evidence 
the accused is entitled to the benefit of every doubt 
that arises from established character. Greene's 
letters, as we have seen, constantly refer every 
question to Washington for decision, and every act 
for approval. Can this uniform habit be reconciled 
with disobedience ; or was Washington a man to 
accept professions for deeds, and give his confidence 
to an officer who virtually called his authority in 
question ? When authorized to decide for himself, 
Greene does not scruple to accept the responsibility : 
witness the holding of Fort Washington from the 8th 
of November to the loth ; when circumstances call 
for immediate action, he acts and refers instantly to 
Washington for approval: witness the reinforcement 
of Fort Washington mentioned in the letter of the 
24th October, and the prohibition for officers of one 



NlTHANAEL GREENE. 57 

regiment to enlist men from another regiment, as 
stated in his letter of the 7th November ; and indeed 
every one of his letters, without exception, where 
the occasion calls for it. Therefore, until some posi- 
tive proof is brought forw^ard, he must be supposed 
to have obeyed the authority whose guidance and 
approbation he so uniformly invoked. Mr. Bancroft 
does not seem to be aware that, in degrading Greene, 
he belittles Washington. 

It must also be borne in mind that Greene's com- 
mand extended up the river to Haverstraw Bay, and 
that it was his duty to provide for the security of the 
men and stores all along this line. The insufficiency 
of the means of transportation, not at this period 
only, but until Greene himself became Quarter- 
master-General, is a fact well known to the students 
of our Revolutionary history. How far, in spite of 
this insufficiency and in the face of great obstacles, 
he succeeded in transporting the stores intrusted to 
his charge to a place of safety, the contemporary 
documents show. "I am sending off the stores as 
fast as I can get wagons," he writes Washington 
immediately after the fall of Fort Washington. " I 
have sent three expresses to Newark for boats, but 
can get no return of what boats we may expect from 
that place. The stores here are large and the trans- 
portation by land will be almost endless. The pow- 
der and fixed ammunition I have sent off first by 
land, as it is an article too valuable to trust upon the 
water." " Our ammunition, light artillery, and the 
best part of our stores had been removed, upon 
the apprehension that Howe would endeavor to 



58 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

penetrate the Jerseys, in which case Fort Lee could 
be of no great use to us," writes Paine, who was 
serving on the spot as volunteer aid to General 
Greene/^ " This loss," says Washington, speaking of 
the stores which actually fell into the hands of the 
enemy, " ivas inevitable. As manii of the stores had been 
removed as circumstances and time would admit ofT f 

IX. Greene's Want of Vigil.ince; takes to 
Flight, etc. 

Mr. Bancroft continues : " In the night of the 
nineteenth, two battalions of Hessian grenadiers, 
two companies of yagers, and the eight battalions 
of the English reserve, at least five thousand men, 
marched up the east side of the Hudson, and the 
next morning about daybreak crossed with their 
artillery to Closter landing, five miles above Fort 
Lee. The movement escaped Greene's attention ; 
so that the nimble seamen were unmolested as they 
dragged the cannon for near half a mile up the nar- 
row, steep, rocky road, to the top of the palisades. 
Aroused from his bed by the report of a country- 
man, Greene sent an express to the Commander-in- 
Chief, and having ordered his troops under arms, took 
to flight with more than two thousand men, leaving 
blankets and baggage, except what his few wagons 
could bear away, more than three months' provision 
for three thousand men, camp-kettles on the fire, 
above four hundred tents standing, and all the can- 
non except two twelve-pounders. With his utmost 

* Crisis, No. 1. Force, III. 1291, 5th Series, 
t Sparks's Writings of Washington, IV. 188, 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 59 

speed he barely escaped being cut off; but Wash- 
ington, first ordering Grayson, his aid de camp, to 
renew the summons for Lee to cross the river, gained 
the bridge over the Hackensack by a rapid march, 
and covered the retreat of the garrison, so that less 
than ninety stragglers were taken prisoners." 195, 
196. 

In this single paragraph Greene is again accused 
of negligence, his retreat called a flight, his success- 
ful exertions to preserve his men ignored, the loss 
of stores and cannon misrepresented by an artful 
enumeration, and the presence of mind and energy 
which excited the admiration of the best contempo- 
rary historian of the war converted into cowardice 
and imbecility. Mr. Bancroft might be asked whether 
he expected Greene to mount guard on the palisades, 
or having taken the usual means of protection, 
place the usual confidence in them ? * He might also 
be requested to say why he neglects to mention the 
"very rainy night^' mentioned by Greene in his let- 
ter to Governor Cooke, and which must necessarily 
have increased the difficulty of detecting the enemy's 
movements ? Or why, when Paine, who as Greene's 
aid may have received the report, and must have 
known who brought it, asserts that it was brought 
by an officer, he should prefer the statement of the 
English commander, who had no especial means of 
knowing beyond conjecture or common hearsay? 
If it was brought by a countryman, as Howe says, 

* In the report of detachments and outguards for November 14 I find : " Out- 
guards, Bergen, Hoebuck, Bull's Ferry, Hackinsack, and opposite Spiten Devil: 
Captains, 1 ; First Lieutenants, 2 ; Second Lieutenants, 2 ; Ensigns, 2 ; Ser- 
geants, 6; Drums and Fifes, 10; Privates, 145." 



60 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

Greene owed his safety to accident ; if by an officer, 
to his own vigilance ; and which of the two Hghts 
the historian of the United States wishes to place 
him in he has left us no reason to doubt. 

Coming now to the substance and details of the 
narrative, we shall see that it is directly contradicted 
in every part by Washington's letter of the 21st of 
November to Lee, and Greene's letter of the 4th of 
December to Governor Cooke, and Paine's narrative 
in the first number of the "Crisis." "Yesterday 
morning," writes Washington, " the enemy landed a 
large body of troops below Dobbs's Ferry, and ad- 
vanced very rapidly to the fort called by your name. 
I immediately went over, and, as the fort was not 
tenable on this side, and we were in a narrow neck 
of land, the passes from which the enemy were at- 
tempting to seize, I directed the troops, consisting of 
Beall's, Heard's, the remainder of Swing's brigades, 
and some other parts of broken regiments, to move 
over to the west side of Hackinsack river. A con- 
siderable quantity of stores and some artillery have 
fallen into the enemy's hands." 

" The loss of Fort Washington," writes Greene to 
Governor Cooke on the 4th of December, " rendered 
Fort Lee useless ; his Excellency ordered its evacua- 
tion accordingly ; all the valuable stores accordingly 
were sent off. The enemy got intelligence of it, and 
as they were in possession of Harlem river, brought 
their boats through that pass without our notice. 
They crost the river in a very rainy night, and 
landed, about five miles above the fort, about 6,000, 
some accounts say 8,000. We had then at Fort 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 61 

Lee only between two and three thousand effective 
men. His Excellency ordered a retreat immediate- 
ly. We lost considerable baggage for want of wag- 
ons and a considerable quantity of stores ; we had 
about ninety or a hundred prisoners taken ; but 
these were a set of rascals that skulkt out of the 
way for fear of fighting. The troops at Fort Lee 
were mostly of the flying camp, irregular and undis- 
ciplined ; had they obeyed orders, not a man would 
have been lost. 

" I returned to the camp two hours after the troops 
marcht off. Colonel Cornell and myself got off sev- 
eral hundred ; yet notwithstanding all our endeavors, 
still near a hundred remained hid in the woods." 

Add to these the narrative of Paine, who was then 
acting as volunteer aid to Greene. 

" As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched 
with them to the edge of Pennsylvania, I am well ac- 
quainted with many circumstances which those who 
lived at a distance know but little or nothing of Our 
situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place 
being on a narrow neck of land between the North 
River and the HacMnsacJc. Our force was incon- 
siderable, being not one fourth as great as Howe 
could bring against us. We had no army at hand 
to have relieved the garrison,* had we shut ourselves 
up and stood on the defence. Our ammunition, light 
artillery, and the best part of our stores had been re- 
moved, upon the apprehension that Howe would en- 
deavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in which case Fort 

Lee could be of no great use to us Such was 

our situation, and condition of Fort Lee on the 20th 



62 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

of November, when an officer arrived with information 
that the enemy, with two hundred boats, had landed 
about seven or eight miles above. Major-General 
Greene, who commanded the garrison, immediately 
ordered them under arms, and sent express to his 
Excellency General Washington at the town of Hack- 
insack, distant, by the way of the ferry, six miles. 
Our first object was to secure the bridge over the 
Hackinsack, which laid up the river, between the 
enemy and us, about six miles from us, and three 
from them. General Washington arrived in about 
three quarters of an hour, and marched at the head 
of the troops towards the bridge, which place I ex- 
pected we should have a brush for ; however they 
did not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest 
part of our troops went over the bridge, the rest over 
the ferry, except some which passed at a mill, on 
.a small creek between the bridge and the ferry, and 
made their way through some marshy grounds, up to 
the town of Hackinsack, and there passed the river. 
We brought off as much baggage as the wagons would 
contain; the rest was lost. The simple object was to 
bring off the garrison." 

It certainly was not from this writer that Mr. Ban- 
croft drew the materiajs for his elaborate picture of 
trepidation and flight. And with these unimpeach- 
able documents before me and Mr. Bancroft's narra- 
tive by their side, he must excuse me if I go to his 
own vocabulary for the epithets which the compari- 
son demands ; and if the accusation of " invention " 
which he launched against the amiable and truth- 
loving Grahame should be thought too harsh, soften 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 63 

it as he did on that memorable occasion into " unwar- 
rantable misapprehension." 

But, the reader will naturally ask, had Mr. Ban- 
croft no authority for his narrative ? I know of but 
one other contemporary authority. Let us see what 
Gordon says. 

" The next object that engaged their attention was 
Fort Lee, situated upon a neck of land about ten 
miles long, running up the North River, on the one 
side, and on the other bounded by the Hackensack 
and the English neighborhood, a branch of it, neither 
of which are fordable near the fort. The neck joins 
the mainland almost opposite to the communication 
between the North and East Rivers at King's Bridge. 
On the 19th, in the morning. Lord Cornwallis, by 
means of boats which entered the North River through 
this communication, landed near Closter, only a mile 
and a half from the English neighborhood. His force 
consisted of the first and second battalions of light 
infantry, two companies of Chasseurs, two battalions 
of British and two ditto of Hessian grenadiers, two 
battalions of guards, and' the thirty-third and forty- 
second regiments. The account of this movement was 
brought to General Greenevf\iAQ in bed. Without wait- 
ing for General Washington's orders, he directed the 
troops to march immediately and secure their retreat 
by possessing themselves of the English neighbor- 
hood; he sent off at the same time information to Gen- 
eral Washington at Hachinsack town. Having gained 
the ground and drawn up the troops in face of the 
enem}^, he left them under the command of General 
Washington, and returned to pick up the stragglers 



64 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

and others, whom, to the amount of about 300, he 
conveyed over the Hackinsack to a place of safety. 
By this decided movement of General Greene's 3,000 
Americans escaped, the capture of whom, at this 
period, must have proved ruinous. Lord Cornwallis's 
intent was evidently to form a line across from the 
place of landing to Hackinsack bridge, and thereby 
to hem in the whole garrison between the north and 
Hackinsack, but General Greene was too alert for him. 
His lordship had but a mile and a half to march, 
whereas it was four miles from Fort Lee to the road 
approaching the head of the English neighborhood, 
where the other amused his lordship till General 
Washington arrived, and by a well-concerted retreat 
secured the bridge over the Hackinsack." * 

This account differs, as it will be seen, from all the 
others, in expressly claiming for Greene the merit of 
securing the road to Hackinsack bridge. It would 
not be difficult to reconcile Gordon's narrative with 
the narratives of Washington, Greene, and Paine, and 
General Greene has nothing to lose and Mr. Bancroft 
nothing to gain by this reconciliation. But for my 
present purpose it is not necessary. Gordon con- 
tradicts Mr. Bancroft even more pointedly than 
any of the other authorities contradict him ; and be- 
fore he can ask to be believed, he must bring wit- 
nesses superior to the Commander-in-Chief, Washing- 
ton, who tells us what he did ; to the commander of 
the fort, Greene, who tells us what he and Washing- 
ton did ; to the eyewitness, Paine, who tells us what 
he saw; and to the contemporary historian, Gordon, 

♦ Gordon, Vol. II. p. 352. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 65 

who tells US what he gathered from the letters and 
the mouths of the actors. 

X. Trenton and Princeton. How Greene 
" reposed." 

In the brilliant and daring conception of the at- 
tack upon Trenton, the only part assigned by Mr. 
Bancroft to Greene is, " The general ofiicers, espe- 
cially Stirling, Mercer, Sullivan, and, above all, Greene, 
rendered the greatest aid in preparing the expedi- 
tion," p. 224. In the other still bolder, and still 
more brilliant movements which closed the cam- 
paign, Mr. Bancroft writes : " Washington lost no 
time in renewing his scheme for driving the enemy 

to the extremity of New Jersey While his 

companions in arms were reposing, he was indefatigable in 
his preparations^' p. 239. Of Greene's claim to have 
done something more than repose through these 
critical days, Hamilton, who a few weeks later be- 
came Washington's confidential aid, wrote in a dis- 
course pronounced before the members of the Cin- 
cinnati, — actors many of them in these events : 
" As long as the measures which conducted us safely 
through the first and most critical stages of the 
war shall be remembered with approbation ; as long 
as the enterprises of Trenton and Princeton shall be 
regarded as the dawnings of that bright day which 
afterwards broke forth with such resplendent lustre ; 
as long as the almost magic operations of the re- 
mainder of that remarkable winter, distinguished 
not more by these events than by the extraordinary 
spectacle of a powerful army straitened within nar- 



66 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

row limits by the phantom of a military force, and 
never permitted to transgress those limits with im- 
pmiity, in which skill supplied the place of means 
and disposition was the substitute for an army ; as 
long, I say, as these operations shall continue to be 
the object of wonder, so long ought the name of 
Greene to be revered by a grateful country. To at- 
tribute to him a portion of the praise which is due- 
as well to ihQ formation as to the execution of the plans 
that effected these important ends can be no dero- 
gation from that wisdom and magnanimity which 
knew how to select and embrace counsels worthy of 
being pursued." * " It would seem," says the judi- 
cious and accurate Sparks, in citing this passage, 
" that General Greene had his full share in lending 
efficient counsel on the present occasion, as well as 
during the previous part of the campaign." f 

Of Greene's method of " reposing" the following 
letters may perhaps be accepted as a suggestive il- 
lustration. 

" Princeton, December 7th, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : — Lord Stirling will write by the same 
express that this comes by, and enclose your Excel- 
lency several pieces of intelligence obtained of dif- 
ferent people yesterday. His Lordship thinks the 
enemy are making a disposition to advance. For 
my part, I am at a loss to determine whether their 
disposition is made to advance or for defence. The 
enemy have got a party advanced about seven miles 
this side Brunswic ; another at Boundbrook, with 

* Hamilton's Works, Vol. II. t Sparks, Vol. IV. p. 544. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 67 

an advanced guard two miles this side of the town. 
'T is reported by some of the country people that 
the enemy intend to advance in two columns ; one 
this, the other Boundbrook road. General Mercer 
advanced upon this road, and I should think the 
German battalion might be advantageously posted. 
on the other road. 

" Major Clarke reports General Lee is as the heels 
of the enemy. I should think he had better keep 
upon the flanks than the rear of the enemy, unless 
it were possible to concert an attack at the same 
instant of time in front and rear. 

" Our retreat should not be neglected, for fear of 
consequences. The bottom of the river should be 
examined, and see if boats can be anchored in the 
ferry-way. If there is no anchor-ground, the bridge 
must be thrown over below. Colonel Biddle had 
better make a trial immediately, that we may not be 
in confusion. If a bridge cannot be thrown over, 
forty boats should be manned under the care of a 
good officer, and held in readiness. With these 
boats prudently managed, the troops could be thrown 
over in a very short time. Methinks all the can- 
non that don't come forward with the army might 
well be posted on the other side of the river to 
cover a retreat. 

" I think General Lee must be confined within the 
lines of some general plan, or else his operations 
will be independent of yours. His own troops. Gen- 
eral St. Clair's, and the militia must form a respecta- 
ble body. 

" If General Dickinson would engage the militia 



68 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

for some definite time, there might be some depend- 
ence upon them, but no operations can be safely 
planned wherein they are to act a part, unless they 
can be bound by some further tie than the com- 
mon obligation of a militia-man. I think if the Gen- 
eral was at length to engage his militia on some 
such plea, your Excellency might take your meas- 
ures accordingly. 

" This moment a captain has returned that went 
to reconnoitre last night, and it is beyond a doubt 
the enemy are advancing, and my Lord Stirling 
thinks they will be up here by twelve o'clock. I 
shall make the best disposition I can to oppose 
them. 

" I am, &c., 

" Nathanael Greene." 

"Coryell's Ferrt, Delaware, December 16, 1776. 

" To THE President of Congress : — 

" Sir : — I take the liberty to recommend Dr. War- 
ren to the Congress as a very suitable person to re- 
ceive an appointment of a sub-director, which, I am 
informed, they are about to create a number of 
Dr. Warren has given great satisfaction where he 
has the direction of business. He is a young gen- 
tleman of ability, humanity, and great application to 
business. 

" I feel a degree of happiness that the Congress 
are going to put the hospital department upon a 
better establishment, for the sick, this campaign, 
have suffered beyond description, and shocking to 
humanity. For my own part, I have never felt any 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 69 

distress equal to what the sufferings of the sick have 
occasioned, and am confident that nothing will in- 
jure the recruiting service so much as the dissatis- 
faction arising upon that head. 
" I am, &c., 

"Nathajstael Greene." 

Surely activity, energy, a comprehensive view of 
the duties and questions of the moment, may be 
claimed for the author of these letters. Who but 
one with whom Washington freely and confidingly 
took counsel could have written the letter of the 
7th December from Princeton ? 

I " Cobtell's Ferrt, December 21, 1776. 

" To THE President of Congress : — 

" Sir : — Although I am far from thinking the 
American cause desperate, yet I conceive it to be in 
a critical situation : the enemy in the heart of the 
country ; the difficulties daily increasing ; the con- 
tinental money losing its currency; the time for 
which the troops stand engaged almost ready to ex- 
pire ; very few enlisted upon the new establish- 
ment ; the tide of public sentiment at a stand, and 
ready to run through different channels ; the people 
refusing to supply the army, under various preten- 
ces, but evidently from a disaffection to the cause 
and to the currency, are combined evils, calculated 
to pave the way for General Howe's advance, who, 
having cantoned his troops advantageously, stands 
prepared to take advantage of these circumstances, 
which, I am sorry to say, afford him but too favor- 



70 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

able a prospect. It is necessary, in addition to this 
disagreeable train of evils, that the different corps 
of officers who are discontented and unsatisfied, 
either from a real or supposed injury in their appoint- 
ments from the different States, should be reconciled, 
that recruiting may go on with spirit, that there 
should be an augmentation of our force, and a larger 
train of artillery. 

" Effectually to remedy these evils and oppose the 
enemy ; to put the recruiting service in a favorable 
train ; to establish the artillery and elaboratory 
upon a proper footing ; to check the disaffected, and 
call out assistance ; to give a currency to the con- 
tinental money, and form the necessary magazines, 
greater powers must be lodged in the hands of the 
General than he has even yet exercised. It is im- 
possible in his present situation, and the short time he 
has to prepare for the ensuing campaign, for him to 
be in readiness as early as General Howe will take 
the field, unless you delegate to him full power to 
take such measures as he may find necessary to pro- 
mote the, establishment of the new army. Time will 
not admit, nor circumstances allow, of a reference to 
Congress, 

" I can see no evil nor danger to the States in del- 
egating such powers to the General, reserving to 
yourselves the right of confirming or repealing the 
measures. The General should have power to ap- 
point officers to enlist at large. This is no time to 
be particular about proportions or attentive to econ- 
omy. The measure of our force should be the ex- 
tent of our funds. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 71 

" We have a formidable enemy to oppose whose 
progress can only be checked by a superior force ; 
and, however disagreeable the reflection, this is a 
serious truth, that the present existence of the civil 
depends upon the military power j neither would I 
advise it at present, but from the fullest conviction 
of its being absolutely necessary. Remember the 
policy of the Romans, a people as tenacious of their 
liberties as any on earth. When their state was in- 
vaded, they delegated full powers to exert their 
whole forces. The fate of war is so uncertain, de- 
pendent upon so many contingencies, a day, nay, an 
hour, is so important in the crisis of public affairs, 
that it would be folly to wait for relief from the de- 
liberative councils of legislative bodies. The virtue 
of the people, at such an hour, is not to be trusted ; 
and I can assure you that the General will not ex- 
ceed his powers, although he may sacrifice the 
cause. There never was a man that might be more 
safely trusted, nor a time when there was a louder 
call. If you intend to support your independence, 
you must not be too delicate in the choice of means. 

" Examples are daily made by General Howe of 
our friends who fall in his way, while those who are 
disaffected to our cause are suffered to remain in 
peace and quiet amongst us. Many who are now 
well affected will be induced, from the risk and dan- 
ger on the one side, and the apparent security on 
the other, to change their sentiments. A discretion- 
ary power to punish the disaffected is necessary. 
The militia has refused to turn out when there has 
been the greatest want of their assistance, and noth- 



72 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

ing but such a power can ever compel them. If the 
refusal of the contmental money, and the withhold- 
ing of the necessary supplies from the army for 
want of such a power in the General, are to pass un- 
punished, the one will put it out of our power to 
pay, and the other to support the troops, and conse- 
quently must lay the foundations of all oppositions. 

" I am, &c., 

"Nath. Greene." 

If we compare this letter with Washington's letter 
of the 20th December, we shall find such a harmony 
of opinions in them as could only have been the re- 
sult of a free interchange of opinion. If we consider 
the gravity of the subject, and the cautious charac- 
ter of Washington, we shall see that he would never 
have entered into such a discussion with any man in 
whom he did not place the fullest confidence. All 
of Greene's contemporaries believed, and all histo- 
rians, till Mr. Bancroft, have written, that this was 
Washington's relation to Greene. Every document 
that I have ever seen confirms this view. Mr. Ban- 
croft does not tell us why he paints Greene in colors 
so irreconcilable with it. 

Letters like these need no comment to establish 
the position of the writer. 

XL Red Clay Creek. What Gordon says, and 

WHAT Mr. B.iNCROFT DOES NOT SAY. 

In his narrative of the events which preceded the 
battle of the Brandy wine, Gordon wrote (Vol. II. p. 
494), " General Greene attended with General Wee- 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 73 

(^011 was sent to reconnoitre, and find out an eligible 
spot for the encampment. He pitched upon one at 
the cross-roads, near six miles distant from the royal 
army, which he judged suitable, as the Americans 
would then have an open country behind them, 
from whence they could draw assistance, and would 
have opportunities of skirmishing with the enemy 
before they were organized and provided with teams 
and horses, &c., for marching ; and as Howe's troops 
would be a long while camped before they could get 
what Avas wanting in order to their proceeding. He 
wrote to the Commander-in-Chief acquainting him 
with the spot he had chosen ; but the information 
was received too late. A council of war had de- 
termined the same day it was transmitted to take a 
position upon Red Clay Neck, about half between 
Wilmington and Christiana, alias Christeen, with 
their left upon Christeen Neck, and their right ex- 
tending towards Chadd's Ford. When the reason 
for it, that it would prevent the enemy's passing on 
for Philadelphia, was assigned to General Greene, he 
maintained that they would not think of Philadel- 
phia till they had beaten the American army ; and 
upon his observing the position that had been taken, 
he condemned it as being greatly hazardous, and 
such as must be abandoned should the enemy when 
organized advance toward them. The Americans, 
however, spent much time and labor in strengthen- 
ing the post." Both time and labor were thrown 
away, for, as Greene had foretold, they were obliged 
to retreat the moment the enemy advanced. But as 
this does not agree with Mr. Bancroft's predetermi- 

10 



74 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

nation to ascribe a brilliant stroke of generalship to 
Washington, he passes over it in silence. 

XII. Greene at the Br.indywine. 

Greene's part in the battle of the Brandywine is 
told in the following words : " How^e seemed likely 
to get in the rear of the continental army and com- 
plete its overthrow. Bnt at the sound of the cannon 
on the right, taliing zvith him Greene and the two higades 
of M'dhlcnherg and Weedon, which lay nearest the scene 
of action, Washington marched swiftly to the sup- 
port of the wing that had been confided to Sullivan, 
and in about forty minutes met them in full retreat. 
His approach checked the jmrmit. Cautiously making 
a new disposition of his forces, Howe again pushed 
forward, driving the party ivith Greene till they came 
upon a strong position, chosen by Washington, which 
completely commanded the road, and which a regi- 
ment of Virginians under Stevens, and another of 
Pennsylvanians under Stewart, were able to hold till 
nightfall." (398). Let us see how Gordon tells the 
story. 

" Generals Washington and Greene being together, 
and hearing the firing, conclude that Sullivan is at- 
tacked. Greene immediately hastens his first brig- 
ade, commanded by General Weedon, toward the 
scene of action with such uncommon expedition that 
in forty and two minutes it advances near four 
miles. The second brigade is ordered by Washing- 
ton to march a different route, as it cannot be up in 

time for service Greene, as he approaches the 

scene of action, perceives that Sullivan's defeat is a 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 75 

perfect rout. A council of war is held upon the 
field, and it is agreed that Greene's brigade shall 
cover the retreat of the flying troops. Greene keeps 
firing his field-pieces in the rear as he retreats, and 
continues retreating half a mile till he comes to a 
narrow pass well secured on right and left by woods. 
Here he draws up his force, consisting of the Vir- 
ginia troops and a regiment of Pennsylvanians com- 
manded by Colonel Stewart ; and sends his artillery 
on, that it may be safe in case of his being under 
the necessity of making a hasty retreat. A warm 
engagement commences, which lasts from the sun's 
being three quarters of an hour high till dark. The 
tenth Virginia regiment, commanded by Colonel 
Stevens, supports the attack of the British cannonade 
and musketry for fifteen minutes, though they had 
never before been engaged. The whole brigade 
exhibits such a degree of order, firmness, and reso- 
lution, and preserves such a countenance in extreme- 
ly sharp service as would not discredit veterans. 
Wayne and the North Carolinians, with the artillery 
and light troops after their defeat by Knyphausen, 
pass the rear of it in their retreat. At dark that 
also is withdrawn by General Greene ; the extreme 
fatigue of the royal troops, together with the late- 
ness and darkness of the evening, prevents its being 
pursued." 

According to Mr. Bancroft, " Washington took 
with him Greene," &c., thus claiming for Washington 
the rapid march of Weedon's brigade. Muhlenberg's, 
which Mr. Bancroft does not say, took another road. 
In advancing this claim he unconsciously advances 



76 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

also a grave accusation against the Commander-in- 
Chief, whom he makes rein in his blooded horse to 
the slow step of a column of infantry, when it was 
in his power, by taking his way across the fields, 
to reach the scene of action in a few minutes. The 
place for Washington at that critical instant w^as with 
Sullivan and the broken troops of the right. That 
this was Washington's own view of his duty appears 
from the statement of Joseph Brown, who served him 
as guide. " General Washington's head-quarters," 
says Mr. Darlington, '' were at B^jamin Bing's 
tavern, about three quarters of a mile east of Chad's 
Ford. He was there and thereabouts all the fore- 
part of the day of the battle. When he ascertained 
that the main body of the enemy were at Birming- 
ham Meeting-House, and engaged Avith our troops, 
he was anxious to proceed thither by the shortest 
and speediest route. He found a resident of the 
neighborhood, named Joseph Brown, and asked him 
to go as a guide. Brown was an elderly man and 
extremely loath to undertake that duty. He made 
many excuses, but the occasion was too urgent for 
ceremony. One of Washington's suite dismounted 
from a fine charger, and told Brown if he did not in- 
stantly get on his horse, and conduct the General by 
the nearest and best route to the place of action, he 
would run him through on the spot. Brown there- 
upon mounted and steered his course direct towards 
Birmingham Meeting-House, W' ith all speed, — the 
General and his attendants being close at his heels. 
He said the horse leapt all the fences without dif- 
ficulty, and was followed in like manner by the 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 77 

others. The head of General Washington's horse, he 
said, was constantly at the flank of the one on which 
he was mounted ; and the General was constantly 
repeating to him, ' Push along^ old man, — Push along, 
old man ! ' When they reached the road, about half 
a mile west of Dilworth's town. Brown said the 
bullets were flying so thick that he felt very uncom- 
fortable ; and as Washington now no longer required 
nor paid attention to his guide, the latter embraced 
the first opportunity to dismount and make his 
escape. This anecdote I had from my father, who 
was well acquainted with Brown, and had ofter heard 
him relate the adventure." * 

Greene's own view of the part he bore in this bat- 
tle may be gathered from various passages in his let- 
ters, of which the following, from a letter of July 
5, 1778, to Henry Marchant, delegate from Rhode 
Island, is the fullest: — "In the action of Brandy wine, 
last campaign, where, I think, both the General and 
the public were as much indebted to me for saving 
the army from ruin as they have ever been to any 
one officer in the course of the war ; but I was 
never mentioned upon the occasion. 

" I marched one brigade of my division," — Mr. 
Bancroft, contradicting Gordon and Greene, says 
both, — "being upon the left wing, between three 
and four miles in forty-five minutes. When I came 
upon the ground I found the whole of the troops 
routed, and retreating precipitately, and in the most 
broken and confused manner. I was ordered to 
cover the retreat, which I effected in such a manner 

* W. Darlington, in Proceedings of Hist. Soc. of Penn., Vol. I. pp. 18, 58, 59. 



78 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

as to save hundreds of our people from falling into 
the enemy's hands. Almost all the park of artillery 
had an opportunity to get off which must have fallen 
into their hands ; and the left wing, posted at Shads- 
ford, got off by the seasonable check I gave the ene- 
my. We were engaged an hour and a quarter, and 
lost upwards of an hundred men killed and wounded. 
I maintained the ground until dark, and then drew off 
the men in good order. We had the whole British 
force to contend with that had just before routed our 
whole right wing. This brigade was commanded by 
General Weedon, and, unfortunately for their own 
interest, happened to be all Virginians. They being 
the General's countrymen, and I thought to be one 
of his favorites, prevented his ever mentioning a 

single circumstance of the affair However, 

as I said before, I trust history will do justice to the 
reputation of those who have made every sacrifice 
for the public service." 

XIII. Germantown. "Greene fell under the Frown 
OF THE Commander-in-Chief." 

We come next to the battle of Germantown. 
"The plan was," says Mr. Bancroft, "to direct the 
chief attack upon its right, to which the approach tvas 
easy ; and for that purpose to Greene, in whom of all 
his generals he most confided, he gave the command 
of his left wing," p. 424. " Greene should by this 
time have engaged the British right, but nothing 

was heard from any part of his wing And 

where was Greene ? " 

That Greene came on the ground over half an 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 79 

hour later than SulUvan no one has ever denied. 
The contemporary explanations of this delay Mr. 
Bancroft has collected in a note in such a manner as 
to give them the air of contradiction, and consequent 
insufficiency. Let us examine them more closely, 
and see how far one excludes the other. " On ac- 
count of the darkness of the night, and the badness 
of some roads," writes Walter Stewart to Gates. It 
is not unnatural to suppose that under such circum- 
stances they should "have mistaken their way," as 
General Lacy says they did. Neither of these state- 
ments conflicts with Macdougall's explanation, — and 
he we must remember was in high command on the 
spot, — " owing to the great distance," any more 
than Heth's statement to Lamb, that " there was 
some mismanagement," contradicts Sullivan's to 
Weare, that Greene's march " was delayed much by 
his being obliged to countermarch one of his divis- 
ions." " Greene's letter to Marchant," says Mr. Ban- 
croft, significantly, " gives no explanation." True ; 
but see what Greene does say : — 

" The battle of Germantown has been as little un- 
derstood as the other by the public at large, espe- 
cially the conduct of the left wing of the army. Great 
pains has been taken to misrepresent the transac- 
tions of that day. / trust history will do justice to the 
reputations of individuals. I have the satisfaction of an 
approving conscience, and the confirming voice of as 
able a general as any we have in service, namely, 
General McDougall, who knows the report the troops 
were delayed unnecessarily to be as infamous a false- 
hood as ever Avas reported. The troops were carried 



80 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

on to action as soon as it was possible, and in good 
order." 

That at least part of the road was bad, even Mr. 
Bancroft — although he had just before asserted 
that the approach on the right " luas easy " — bears 
witness to in the subsequent assertion" that Greene 
" attempted to advance two miles or more through 
marshes, thickets, and strong and nmneroiis post and rail 
fences." It is undoubtedly much to be regretted that 
Greene's report of this battle should not have been 
preserved ; but a large part of all his papers of this 
period have been lost. That his enemies should 
have seized upon this occasion to attack him will 
readily be conceived by all who remember that this 
was the period when the Conway cabal first began 
to raise its venomous head, and that every blow 
which was aimed at Washington was aimed also at 
Greene as his most trusted counsellor and friend. 
How these attacks were received Henry Lee tells 
us : " The left column was under the order of Major- 
General Greene. Some attempts were made at that 
time to censure that officer; but they were too 
feeble to attract notice when levelled at a general 
whose uniform conduct had already placed him high 
in the confidence of his chief, and of the army." * 

" Greene on that day," continues Mr. Bancroft, 
" ' fell under the frown ' of the Commander-in-Chief" 
Greene, in a letter to Washington of November 24, 
1777, says: " In some instances we have been unfor- 
tunate. In one I thought I felt the lower of your 
Excellency's countenance when I am sure I had no 

* Lee's Mem., Vol. I. p. 27. 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 81 

reason to expect it." I am not aware that there is 
any other authority for referring this expression of a 
sensitive apprehension to Germantown, although Mr. 
Bancroft's inverted commas would seem to intimate 
the existence of some direct and authoritative state- 
ment. If so, the Commander-in-Chief must be praised 
rather for his magnanimity than for his discretion ; for 
within six weeks from this very time, having already 
distinguished Greene " early in the war," Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall tells us, " for the solidity of his judg- 
ment, and his military talents," he selected him to 
command, against CornwalHs, England's best general, 
an expedition which required the highest degree of 
both.* 

XIV. Who covered the Retreat? 

"At about half past eight," continues Mr. Ban- 
croft, Washington, who " in his anxiety exposed him- 
self to the hottest fire," seeing that the day was lost, 
gave the word to retreat, and sent it to every divis- 
ion. Care was taken for the removal of every piece 
of artillery. " British officers of the first rank said 
that no retreat was ever conducted in better order," 
p. 428. By the juxtaposition of these sentences it 
seems to be implied that Washington saved the can- 
non and conducted the retreat. I once more com- 
pare Bancroft with Gordon, whose statements he 
should have held himself bound to disprove before 
he ventured to reject them. 

" Greene, with his own and Stephen's division, hap- 
pens to form the last column of the retreating Amer- 

* Marshall's Washington, Vol. I. p. 179. 
11 



82 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

icans. Upon coming to two roads, and thinking it 
will be safest, and may prevent the enemy's advan- 
cing by either so as to get ahead of him, and that 
the divisions may aid each other upon occasion, he 
marches one division on the one road and the sec- 
ond on the other. While continuing his retreat, Pu- 
laski's cavalry, who are in his rear, being fired upon 
by the enemy, ride over the second division, and 
throw them into the utmost disorder, as they know 
not at first but that they are the British dragoons. 
The men run and scatter, and the general is appre- 
hensive that he shall lose his artillery. He cannot 
collect a party sufficient to form a rear guard till he 
hits upon the device of ordering the men to lay hold 
of each other's hands. This answers. He collects a 
number, and by the help of the artillery brings the 
enemy to give over the pursuit after having contin- 
ued it near five miles." * 

XV. Why Greene was made Quartermaster-General. 

" Driven by necessity. Congress won slowly a par- 
tial victory over their pride and their fears, and on 
the second of March they elected Greene quaTter- 
master-general, giving him two assistants that were 
acceptable to him, and the power of appointing all 
other officers in his department," p. 469. 

Mr. Bancroft might have added, that Greene ac- 
cepted this office with great reluctance ; that he was 
urged to it by the committee of Congress, and the 
solicitations of Washington, and yielded only from a 
sense of duty to his country, and personal devotion 

* Gordon, Vol. I. p. 524. 



NATHAN AEL GREENE. 83 

to the Commander-in-Chief. " There is a great differ- 
ence," he writes Washington on the 24th of August, 
1779, "between being raised to an office and de- 
scending to one. There is also a great difference be- 
tween serving where you have a fair prospect of 
honor and laurels, and where you have no prospect 
of either, let you discharge your duty ever so well. 
Nobody ever heard of a quartermaster, as such, or 
in relating any brihiant expedition. I engaged in 
this business as well out of compassion to your Ex- 
cellency as from a regard to the public. I thought 
your task too great to be Commander-in-Chief and 
quartermaster at the same time." Surely facts and 
sentiments like these form a part of the true picture 
of a great national contest. 

Conclusion. 

I have now" examined one by one the passages of 
Mr. Bancroft's volume which relate to General 
Greene, and compared them with authentic docu- 
ments. I have shown, — 

1. That the assertion that Greene was despondent 
in 1776 is not only unfounded, but irreconcilably 
at variance with the general tone of his letters at 
that period, and even with those upon which the 
charge is founded. 

2. That Greene's account of the affair at Kip's Bay 
contains no " reflection " upon Washington. 

3. That the manner in which the attempt upon 
Staten Island is related conveys, by the suppression 
of an important fact, a false idea of Greene. 



84 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

4. That Greene's letter to Washington upon the 
evacuation of Fort Independence contains no mur- 
murs, and no allusion to the " spirit of his troops " ; 
although Mr. Bancroft by an unfortunate juxtaposi- 
tion conveys the impression that a phrase which act- 
ually occurs in a letter to Mifflin forms part of a letter 
to Washington. Greene expressly declares that he 
did not believe Fort Independence could be held. » 

5. That Greene reported promptly to the Com- 
mander-in-Chief every step he took for the reinforce- 
ment of Fort Washington. That till the 8th Novem- 
ber Washington himself believed that post could be 
held. That the question of evacuation was referred 
to Greene on the 8th of November, because he was on 
the spot:^ That on the loth Washington by coming 
on the spot became the responsible officer. That if 
the success of the retreat from Long Island can be 
taken as a test, the troops might have been re- 
moved between the evening of the 13th and the 
morning of the 16th, when the attack began. And 
that Stedman, an English officer who wrote a history 
of high authority, expressly blames Washington for 
not removing them even after the investment began. 

6. That Mr. Bancroft misrepresents Greene by a 
curious selection of suggestive words, and by chang- 
ing Greene's own words. Did not scruple for did not 
hesitate is an example of the first ; any conceivable 
danger for any great danger, of the second. 

7. That the change of easy, sanguine disposition is 
disproved by Greene's letters. 

* " I wrote to General Greene, who had the command on the Jersey shore, 
directing him to govern himself by circumstances, and to retain or evacuate the 
post as heshould thinkbest." — Washington to President Cong., Nov. 16th, 1776. 



NATHANAEL GREENE. 85 

8. That the charge of neglect of orders is disproved 
by all the documents. 

9. That Greene, having taken the usual means of 
guarding his post, could not be blamed for relying 
upon them. That Mr. Bancroft's account of the fall 
of Fort Lee is contradicted by Washington, Greene, 
Paine, and Gordon ; and in language so precise and 
distinct as to make it a matter of wonder from 
whence he could have drawn it. 

10. That at Trenton and Princeton Greene was 
not merely an agent, but a trusted counsellor of 
Washington. 

11. That in the narrative of the movements after 
Howe's landing at the Head of Elk Greene is injured 
by omission, although the principal contemporary 
historian bears full witness to his services. 

12. That his part in the battle of the Brandywine 
is almost ignored, although there is abundant and 
authentic testimony of the extent and importance 
of it. 

13. That his part in the battle of Germantown is 
misrepresented, and his great services passed over in 
silence. 

And, lastly, that in relating the fact of Greene's 
appointment as quartermaster-general Mr. Bancroft 
has suppressed the fact of Greene's great reluctance 
to accept that office, and his consenting to it only 
from a sense of duty, and personal attachment to 
Washington. 



Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante is the in- 
scription of the temple which grateful France has 



86 NATHANAEL GREENE. 

consecrated to those who served her with their 
swords, with their tongues, or with their pens. Il- 
lustrious deeds are the legacy of the past, and the 
seed of the future. From them spring generous 
emulations, earnest thoughts, noble desires, the self- 
denial that purifies, and the aspirations that exalt. 
Woe to the people who, either in the cares or in the 
pleasures of the present, forget what they owe to 
the past! Woe to the nation that has no rebuke for 
the rash hand or the irreverent tongue ! 



Cambridge : Priuted by Welch, Bigelow, aud Company. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



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HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

12ino. 



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HISTORICAL STUDIES. 12mo. 

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